CFX BANK Ownership Case Study
It appears there is a misunderstanding on why I have been publishing letters relating to claim for ownership of 309 million Century/CFX Bank shares. In addition some have asked why the matter is being raised 5 years after the 309 Million shares where irregularly sold and transferred.
When the sale was done on or around 12 May 2004 I through my lawyers Ziweni and Company filed a high court application to block the sale of the shares. This record should still be there at the Harare High Court. As soon as we filed this application I was then specified without a hearing. This limited my ability to follow up the application. My lawyer and hid firm was also specified. Leaving me without legal representation on the matter.
This was all done to ensure that the 309 million shares are sold, transferred and Century/CFX Bank is snatched from my Company - ENG Capital.
Several articles have been written highlighting how these 309 million shares and Century/CFX bank was grabbed from ENG Capital. Over the time we had hoped the current and previous Directors and Management of CFX Bank would reach out and try to find out what really transpired and resolve our claim. This is the normal way of doing business. If you hear someone claiming ownership of your Bank or business you are expected to confront or engage that person to verify the nature of their claim. The CFX Bank Board, Management and shareholders somehow made the arrogant decision to behave as if everything is normal and totally disregard a claim which has been documented even at High court since day one of the fraudulent merger between Century and CFX Bank.
Even the latest press comments by the Bank through an individual identified as its Lawyer it appears they want to keep hiding behind technicalities such as you should have raised the claim earlier or you are specified therefore you cant act on your own behalf. This is inaccurate and misleading.
This level of arrogance and total disregard of material facts and potential impact on investors is an attitude which must be challenged and stopped. As out lined above this matter was filed at the high court in May 2004.And over the years articles detailing the claim have been published. Any serious and responsible Board of Directors would have taken corrective action by at least engaging in negotiations. Let it be noted that had they done that at early stages this matter would have been closed by simply acknowledging that there was some injustice but however they were not aware that such a thing had happened. This would have been a reasonable and acceptable position.
However it appears the current Board and Management want to keep denying clear facts and act as if nothing was amiss. The continual reference to my specification only highlights that the people who grabbed Century/CFX Bank from me and ENG Capital are the same people who abused the law and manipulated the legal system to specify me without a hearing so that I can follow through action to block the sale and transfer of the shares.
The cases of illegal and unjust business seizures have been occurring at an alarming rate in Zimbabwe. This must be firstly documented. Those doing it must be notified and warned. Those aiding ,abetting and facilitating such business seizures must be documented and be made aware records exist of their illegal action.
Employees in affected businesses such as employees at CFX Bank are encouraged and expected to remain professional and do their best to keep the Company vibrant but must avoid being used as proxies in a shareholder fight. This is not wise.
This part of an effort to fully document and seek redress for the fraudulent transfer of 309 million shares which were used to merge Century Bank and CFX Bank. CFX Bank was created as a result of a merger between CFX Bank and Century Bank. Century Bank was fraudulently merged with CFX Bank through the illegal and irregular transfer of 309,000,000 Century Holdings shares owned by ENG Capital and Companies owned or controlled by ENG Capital. Since this was a fraudulent and illegal transfer of ENG shares the plotters of the scheme renamed the resultant bank CFX Bank dropping the name "Century" in an effort to hide their tracks and attempt to remove any link with Century.
In April 2003 ENG Capital Investments acquired Century Discount Holdings from Century Financial Holdings ( A ZSE listed Financial Holdings Firm).The purchase price was Z$1.5 billion then equivalent to US$ 3 million. The purchase price was paid in full. ENG then applied to the Registrar of Banks and Financial Institutions for the change of controlling shareholder approval which approvals were denied.
After several attempts to get the underlying reasons for the denial I was informed that ” the Authorities” were not comfortable with ENG political inclination which they said remained “unclear” in addition issue of the ENG Directors age was raised. We then tried to find out if Century Financial Holdings was in a position to refund ENG for the purchase price and to reverse the Century Discount House purchase. Century Holdings was not in a position to refund ENG.
The only recourse was that ENG had to acquire Century Financial Holdings to mitigate any potential loss of outlay on the Century Discount house acquisition. As such ENG and its associated Companies acquired a total of 52% (including the 309 million) of Century Financial Holdings making Century an ENG subsidiary.
Through our Lawyers Ziweni and Company we sought the identity of the buyer and also to clarify that the share sell was null and void as it had all whole marks of corruption, insider dealing and was being challenged by the beneficial owners of the shares. In addition the shares had been sold through a special bargain and not an open market transparent transaction. The shares were sold for an unrealistic amount of Z$ 3 billion when ENG Capital had acquired the same shares for at least Z$35 billion. This resulted in the prejudice of Z$ 32 billion to ENG Capital Creditors and Contributories/Shareholders. We also asked the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to investigate and stop the share transfer.
These articles form part of a wider effort to ensure that Zimbabwe’s Corporate sector eventually develops to be one where shareholders are respected and the rule of law is not applied selectively in terms of Investor protection. Whilst the case study may be focused on the 309 million shares and ownership of Century/CFX Bank the facts and scenario can be applied to other businesses that were affected by similar schemes that we devised by corrupt politicians and a corrupt central Bank Governor. It is very important that such cases be clearly and completely be documented.
Gilbert Muponda is a Founder of GMRI CAPITAL . He can be reached at; www.ZimFace.com
Email: gilbert@gilbertmuponda.com . Skype ID: gilbert.Muponda
Twitter ; http://twitter.com/gmricapital
Phone: 1-416-841-5542
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