Chris Muronzi

NATIONAL Social Security Authority (NSSA) has acquired a controlling stake in Afre Corporation Ltd, businessdigest has established.
Well-placed sources said NSSA, which recently completed the acquisition of ReNaissance Merchant Bank (RMB), also emerged with a 52% stake of Afre’s total issued share capital.
This comes after NSSA acquired Econet Wireless Zimbabwe’s 19,7% stake in Afre this week at a premium of 514% of the last trading day’s share price. The sale went through the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange on Monday. The pension fund already held over 32% through RMB.

Afre and Econet chairman Tawanda Nyambirai confirmed NSSA had taken acquired over 50% stake of Afre and would appoint its owns board members to the board of the insurance conglomerate.

“We entered into an agreement to sell 19% of Afre. That agreement was between RFHL, NSSA, RMB and Econet, where we agreed to sell 19% stake to NSSA. We agreed that on implementation of the agreement, we (Econet) would cease to be a shareholder and that we would step down from the board and they would appoint their own representatives,” said Nyambirai.

Chris Chirairo, Tracy Mpofu, John Gould, George Nyashanu and Nyambirai stepped down from the board in terms of the agreement.
NSSA GM James Matiza on Wednesday confirmed buying a controlling stake in Afre.

He said: “That (Econet representatives have to step down) was contained in the agreements. But the decision to step down or not will be made at a board meeting this week. Representatives of NSSA, chairman Innocent Chagonda and the chairman of the board investment committee Chris Hokonya — and myself will attend the board meeting.”

Should the board positions be vacant, the three would fill in the positions, Matiza said.

He added: “We don’t know who among the three would take over as chairman.”

NSSA, RFHL, RMB and Econet signed an agreement late December that saw the pension fund emerging with an 84% stake in the merchant bank.

RMB is a merchant bank formerly owned by Patterson Timba, Dunmore Kundishora and Clementine Sibve.

The deal involved a combination of cash and debt conversion.

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