Maryland Mall – in the eye of the storm

I don’t know why anytime I visit the iconic Maryland Mall something happens

The last time, I went there one journey- man journalist took the place to the cleaners lamenting about its unkempt nature and epileptic service

I didn’t even know that the place was under receivership management until that report came out.

Under this management, the new managers had shut down its main cash earner – the large LED Board which is reputed to be one of the largest on the continent, stopped collecting tolls for the car park another huge revenue earner and generally just let the place go

One wondered why this would be the case, since the objective of the receivership was to run the place to reduce liability and eventually take out liability totally

Well today, we now know the reason.

An obscure full-page advert was sighted during the week in a National Business Paper asking for buyers.

The advert was not coy about its intent. It labelled the mall as iconic and showed us a picture of the LED Board claimed that 1,000 eyeballs could see it in seconds

It asked for serious bidders after which they would send an info memorandum with all information after which the preferred bidder would be selected and the transaction would be completed

They cited as sales points – prime location, diversified customer mix, strong footfall and capable management

One would however wish that life was this simple.

It is not.

My independent investigations have thrown up some interesting facts

The original owners, Purple, like most businesses at that time, ran into a serious forex turbulence

The Naira’s weakening that followed the abrupt withdrawal of subsidy threw into the mud their repayment plan to their South African shylocks

Meeting the periodic forex repayments from Naira earnings became very herculean, eventually leading to the receiver management arrangement

From my early economics class at the defunct Federal School of Art and Science where I failed, I was told that the receiver managers’ first task was to run the place to take out their liabilities and in most cases hand back once that has been achieved.

It appears these south Africans didnt take classes at Federal School of Art and science and have opted at a full sale after muting revenue taps

Let me tell you guys what I have found out

Purple’s exposure to their apartheid counterparts sits at about $12m san a submitted return of about $7m.

At the time of takeover, they had paid $7m leaving an exposure of $5m from the principal and the $7m return

They have gone ahead to submit a repayment plan which includes offering them a 40% stake representing the $7m outstanding return, which they can sell off and collect their money if they so wished

They also offered to sell a portion of the mall and add cash which restores their capital and after that pull out a credible forward repayment of the accumulated interest

While waiting for a responsible response from the masters, we all just stumbled on the advert

Feelers, I’m getting at Purple is that they are not averse to the sale but are wary of getting an acceptable valuation so that they are still not stuck with any exposure after the sale

This is quite a very unfortunate incident cos these young men chasing the Nigerian dream, built a structure that employed thousands of Nigerians directly and indirectly and was headed to wards the NGX to give Nigerians a fair share of the cake only to be stymied by foreigners who are not content with maltreating us in their country but still come here to axyphiate us with allien business practices

Why push for an outright sale when you have been paid about 60% of your exposure and with a clear road map to take the rest out if it is not their usual drunken and rowdy approach to human relations

This is truly a very sad story and I’m not happy

They can come and beat me