Source: Company controlled by ‘Zimbabwe’s richest man’ on verge of bankruptcy – The Citizen
Strive Masiwia, Chairman, Econet Wireless, South Africa, making a point on globalization, CC BY-SA 2.0
Econet Media is working to find a way to keep operating or salvage what it can.
A report by TechCentral on Friday suggested that heavy debts and economic problems in Zimbabwe of $130 million (R1.8 billion) hitting Econet Media have led to the company going into administration.
The company, controlled by billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, often described as Zimbabwe’s richest man, was not able to pay suppliers and hired an insolvency practitioner, Ernst & Young, to try to save the business.
Masiyiwa is a London-based Zimbabwean businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of diversified international telecommunications, media and technology group Econet Wireless.
Econet launched the Kwese Play internet streaming service in South Africa in 2017 and owns 20% of Kwese Free TV. This is a separate company and is believed to be largely unaffected. It still has until March 2021 to launch its free-to-air terrestrial broadcasting service, the first in South Africa to be licensed since e.tv in the 1990s.
Econet’s letter to creditors blamed the “current macroeconomic conditions in Zimbabwe” for its cash problems, adding “the company has been seriously affected by the currency regime” in the country.
Their letter said: “In the circumstances, the directors believe that it is in the best interests of the company and its creditors that (it) be placed into voluntary administration … and for an administrator to be appointed.”
They hope to keep operating or salvage as much as possible.
COMMENTS
A billionaire can’t/won’t pay $ 130 mil debt? Sounds like just another zanoid thief to me.
When will all you fools in Zim begin to wake up and smell the coffee…this Masiyiwa character has been a front man for laundering ZANU PF’s money, including funds looted from the fiscus by numerous ZANU PF affiliated thieves, thugs and politically well connected bottom feeders, since the inception of Econet in Zimbabwe! Start by asking yourselves one simple question…how did he manage to start this company and keep going throughout the period when it was considered taboo for an outsider to play a domineering role in the communications industry??? He was their cash cow, their savior in terms of laundering billions and then making himself to look the martyr while leading the high life and living in London, having his kids go to posh private schools, yet you all admire the very thief who is at the helm of this sinking ship and who is directly responsible for the situation the country finds herself in today! Where there is smoke there is ALWAYS fire and I’d have thought you idiots would have detected the smoke, as some of us have done, a long long time ago!!!!
Firstly, how old are you fool? You have no clue what you’re on about. Your written language is good though, but you don’t sound clever.
You don’t retrieve money from one busness venture to rescue another. If you do that you have a chance of drowning them both. Whay do you think the likes of Trump also go bankrupt!!!
I assume you’re not referring to me as being the fool comrade…or are you????
Show me one project that works in Zimbabwe,not when zanu thieves are still in power.lt will never happen