Choppies Enterprise Limited, the dual listed company, said it will pay P 2 .00 to acquire an additional stake in Kamoso Africa Group in a move that will make it a significant player in the African region.
The Botswana Stock Exchange and Johannesburg Stock Exchange listed company is aiming to acquire an additional 46 percent to move up its shareholding to 76 percent.
“Choppies is proposing to pay P 2.00 to acquire the subject to the target companies agreeing to Choppies taking-over their debt,’ Kennedy Kgomanyane of Stockbrokers Botswana told Sunday Standard online on Thursday night.
The exiting shareholders are Newshelf 1392(Pty) Ltd and by lapef 2Rmbv7- the latter is registered in Mauritius and have combined loans of P 28 million. Choppies will remain with Botswana Development Corporation that holds the balance of 24 percent.
Kamoso is focused on manufacturing, packaging, supplying and distribution.
“Kamoso is a badly ran company. It is fraud ridden,” Choppies chief executive officer Ramachandran Ottapothu has said.
Two years ago, Liquorama which is a division of Kamoso was defrauded P25 million by its two employees and disappeared into thin air.
Choppies said it can see a silver lining on Kamoso business model- especially on the building material business ( Builders Mart ) as the is a pent -up demand for building materials in countries that it operates in.
“There is rapid urbanization resulting in demand of housing and infrastructure increasing exponentially within Africa. African also has an expanding middle class. A significant majority o Africans in the middle class hold salaried jobs or own a small business,” the company said.
It added” many of them have access to mortgage loans and are building their own properties and homes.”
It said it will be expanding Builders Mart to the African countries that it operates in. It’s operations are sprawled across the southern African region; Botswana, Namibia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia.
The other division that enticed Choppies to bid for additional shareholding is Liquorama which has 68 outlets in Botswana alone.
Post acquisition it will have six segments of reporting- being Botswana, Namibia, Zambia , Zimbabwe, Kamoso Group and Liquorama.
Recently, Choppies successfully raised P 300 million through rights offer.
