Billionaire businessman Peter Munga orchestrated a secretive purchase of 452.5 million shares of Britam Holdings from the government of Mauritius in a deal that left the island nation with a Sh3.9 billion loss, according to an inquiry report.
The Port Louis commission of inquiry, which investigated the transactions, established that the then Mauritius’ Minister of Financial Services, Good Governance and Institutional Reforms Roshi Bhadain helped the Kenyan businessman buy the shares for Sh7.1 billion in 2016.
This was despite the fact that there were rival higher bids of Sh11 billion each from South Africa’s insurance firm MMI Holdings and Barclays Bank (now Absa Group), which Mr Munga had earlier promised to match.
The Britam shares were seized by Mauritius in 2015 from its citizen Dawood Rawat, whose Sh71 billion ponzi scheme was exposed, putting pressure on the government to sell his assets in Kenya and other jurisdictions to compensate investors and policyholders.
After buying the shares, Mr Munga would later sell them in two tranches at undisclosed prices that are expected to have earned him billions of shillings in capital gains.