It has been a busy week for Uganda’s tycoon Patrick Bitature after the South African based money lending entity launched a move to get it’s loan back. This started with a document that was showing how Patrick Bitature property was being auctioned.
This was followed by public statements from Simba companies that were saying that the people that started that were about putting the huge business empire down. Within a few days, Patrick Bitature released a statement saying that his property that includes Elizabeth Royal Apartments, Protea Hotel Naguru (Skys Hotel) and Moyo Close Apartments were not for sale by anyone.
Now, Vantage Capital has come out with an official release giving accounts on how everything happened, and moved on to say that Patrick Bitature as a guarantor for the acquisition of the $10m loan have never made any repayment in Seven years.
What is Vantage Capital?
It is an Africa focused fund manager with offices in Johannesburg, South Africa. Vantage was founded in 2001 and has to date raised funds of over $1.4bn with investors of international repute that include several European finance institutes.
So now, what does Vantage say about the $10m loan it gave to Patrick Bitature?
Well, it is clearly stated that, on the 11th of December 2014, Vantage concluded a loan deal with Simba Properties Investment Company (SPIC) that was forwarded by Patrick Bitature. This was received under Vantage’s second mezzanine fund and the three Simba Group companies were present that include Linda Properties Limited, Elgon Terrace Limited and Simba Telecom Limited.
Vantage Capital continues to say that, this money was meant to finance debts that were existent in the group and finance the completion of of Skys Hotel, then provide working capital. The loan that later on was not serviced for now Seven years and it has now accumulated to a whole $34,000,000.
Vantage Capital continues to share its frustration that, despite all the “PR Campaign” Patrick Bitature and Simba Group are trying to put up, they do are not denying for acquiring the said loan. But they instead used the advantage of Uganda’s courts of laws to push away the creditors.
In the same lengthy public statement, Vantage Capital says it derives no pleasure in exposing the private disputes, but it is a move to retaliate the existing PR tactics Patrick Bitature is exhibiting currently in media. And they are optimistic that, one day, Vantage will gain its money through all grounds possible.
“We derive no pleasure from publishing this statement and do not believe it to be a proper behavior to air out one’s private disputes in the press. We in fact deliberately refrained from such PR tactics in response to recent media attention and Mr. Bitature’s PR Campaign, however we are duty bound to set the record straight” part of the statement reads.
READ FULL PDF STATEMENT HERE
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