By Muhereza Kyamutetera
In January 2012, at the climax of Uganda’s financial crisis, I, on behalf of The CEO Magazine had a rare opportunity to interview businessman and property baron Dr. Sudhir Ruparelia.
We discussed a number of things, but most importantly, I asked him for his 7 best tips on how to survive the then hard times.
At the time, annual headline and core inflation stood at an acute 25.7 and 28.1% respectively and in a bid to fight it off, Bank of Uganda drove the Central Bank Rate (CBR) to an all-time high of 23%, causing the banks to jerk up their prime lending rate to a 19-year high of 27.25% and virtually bringing lending to a halt.
“The very first step in surviving every storm is the hope and optimism that it will be over,” he told me.
Quoting what he said was one of his favourite African proverbs, he added: “However long the night, the dawn will break” and hastened to add: “So if you want to survive the hard times, you must reach out deep into yourself and prepare to fight hard, well knowing that this is going to be over someday- no matter how tough it may seem.”
At the time, Dr. Sudhir’s statement sounded like one of those statements made by successful people that have the rare luxury of ‘rewriting’ history, because they have literally ‘arrived’.
Little did I know that a couple years later, the ‘doctor of business’ would practically practice what he preached.
First forward, in October 2016, Bank of Uganda seized Sudhir’s Crane Bank, where he was one of the biggest shareholders and by end of January 2017, summarily sold it to dfcu Bank at a paltry UGX200 billion; paltry, because the bank had in excess of UGX1.8 trillion by end of 2015.
Many people, myself inclusive for a moment thought that ‘Boss” as many of his friends and colleague call him, was down and out.
But we were wrong. As the country would later learn, the boss would literally borrow from his earlier advice and “reach out deeply into himself and prepare to fight hard”.
And fight he did; taking the battle to his tormentors.
Multibillion suits against dfcu Bank, lawyers
First he successfully sued and had two city law firms; MMAKS Advocates and AF Mpanga (Bowmans) thrown off the case in which they were representing Bank of Uganda in suit HCCS 493 of 2017 brought by the central bank against him.
He would then later through his Crane Management Services (CMS) drag dfcu Bank to court for breach of various tenancy agreements in respect to 13 properties in Kampala and Mbale. He want dfcu to pay him USD385,728 and UGX2,998,558,624 as rental arrears. Again through Meera Investments Ltd, the property development arm of the Ruparelia Group, dragged dfcu to court for breaching a tenancy agreement for Plot 38 Kampala (former Crane Chambers) and Plot 40A Kampala Road and wants a compensation of USD 8, 660,462.34.
Sudhir wants dfcu evicted out of 42 properties, currently hosting various dfcu branches, that he says dfcu “fraudulently” and “illegally” transferred to themselves.
Relatedly, he has also applied to court to have another city law firm, Sebalu & Lule Advocates thrown off representing dfcu Bank as the firm had previously been CMS’ lawyers.
All these cases are yet to be decided.
BoU illegally sold Crane Bank to dfcu Bank
But perhaps, his biggest fight to date is the one in which he is believed to be one of the whistleblowers against BoU to parliament, that eventually culminated into the famous COSASE probe against the central bank. This classic hero-turned-villain case, saw Bank of Uganda and several of its senior officers ‘stripped naked’ and ‘laid bare’ to shame for a series of negligent illegalities and excessive breaches of corporate governance principles in the way they sold off 7 defunct banks, Crane Bank inclusive.
While debating the COSASE report, Manjiya County Member of Parliament, John Baptist Nambeshe, would applaud Sudhir as the “only dispossessed bank owner who never let go, who fought back and his fight helped to exposed the incompetence, the rot in bank of Uganda, the culture of impunity in BOU, the criminality in BoU.”
And his fight was not in vain, at least partly, as COSASE recommended that Sudhir and other defunct bank shareholders who were “disadvantaged” by the malicious acts of BoU be compensated. The committee also ruled that BoU illegally ‘sold’ UGX570bn worth of bad loans belonging to Crane Bank (CBL) shareholders to dfcu and ordered that BoU should make good the loss occasioned to CBL at a “commercially fair extent of the value of the bad book.”
As to whether the recommendations of the committee will be implemented by parliament, that is a story for another day.
Big come back: Kingdom Mall & Speke Apartments in hand and a 5-star hotel in the offing
And just to signal to all those who thought he was ‘finished’ as Ugandans like to say, between 2016 and to date, through his Meera Investments, Dr Sudhir has been on a construction spree, erecting a series of buildings all over town, adding to the over 300 commercial and residential properties already owned by the Group in Kampala and other major towns like Mukono, Jinja, Mbale and Mbarara.
According to him, Meera also has the largest number of ongoing real estate projects and is the largest private owner of commercial land in Kampala.
One of the projects that stand out is the first phase of the Kingdom Kampala Mall, project- a mixed use property in the centre of Kampala that is 95% complete and is due for official launch this quarter.
Also finished and delivered after 2016 is the Speke Apartments- Uganda’s largest and most luxurious apartments hotel with a mix of modern contemporary surroundings and a relaxing, laid-back environment.
But that’s not all- the Ruparelia Group announced plans to construct a 5-star Speke Resort and Convention Centre, in Entebbe.
When it is completed, it will be a beautiful addition to the group’s portfolio of luxury and budget hospitality facilities that include: Speke Resort and Conference Centre, Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort, Kabira Country Club, Speke Hotel, Dolphin Suites, Tourist Hotel, Forest Cottages, Speke Resort Bujagali Falls and the recently expanded Speke Apartments.
The group is Uganda’s largest hotel chain.
All the above aside, there was more great news to share from the Ruparelia Group stable.
This year, Kampala Parents one of his several education outfits had all its 2018 Primary Seven pupils pass in first grade.
Late 2018, the Group’s Commonwealth Resort Munyonyo and Speke Resort Munyonyo won the coveted 2018 World Luxury Hotel Awards regional and country categories respectively.
His Sanyu FM radio is among the top 5 radio stations, while Goldstar Insurance his insurance business is the 6th biggest insurance company in Uganda, even after selling off the life insurance arm, to Prudential plc, in a regulatory-sanctioned split.
Talk of having the last laugh.
Source: kyamutetera.com
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