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Dr Michael Gondwe one of the shareholders’ representatives

Business Reporter
CREDITORS and management of Afrasia Capital Management, now Smartvest Wealth Managers, have taken over 100 percent shareholding of the company following the completion of a scheme of arrangement, which involved conversion of debt to equity.

Under the scheme of arrangement, investee creditors who were owed close to $3 million got 90 percent shareholding while the management and staff got 10 percent.

“It is important to note that following the successful implementation of the scheme of arrangement by ACM and change of name to Smartvest Wealth Managers, the re-branded business is now totally divorced from Afrasia Bank,” managing director Peter Kadzere said.

Afrasia Bank, under liquidation, owned 100 percent stake in ACM.

The bank surrendered its banking license in February this year and was placed under provisional liquidation a month clatter. ACM, being subsidiary of ABZL, would have also been liquidated.

However, the first ABZL creditors meeting held in July approved disposal of ACM through a Scheme of Arrangement as proposed by management. In August, the High Court ordered ACM to convene a scheme meeting in which creditors approved the arrangement.

Mr Kadzere said the company will only be engaging the liquidator for purposes of collecting liquidation dividends on behalf of shareholders and creditors.

“We are pleased to advise that the certificate to effect the company name change was issued on 15 December 2015 by Registrar of Companies and the business has already started to re-engage its erstwhile clients to reopen business relationships,” said Mr Kadzere.

A dividend payout of about 40 percent is expected to be paid over three years with the first payment being expected in January 2016.

Consistent with the scheme of arrangement, management engaged Dr Michael Gondwe and Mr Heathcote to be shareholders’ representatives on the new board based on their relatively higher shareholdings.

The interim board was appointed last month.

“The board is now working closely with management in terms of the future of the re-branded business. The board has since adopted the five year strategic plan and budgets for the business. All the assumptions used in budgets and strategic plan assume a re-branded company totally decoupled from Afrasia Bank in liquidation,” said Mr Kadzere.