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NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

ANZ forced to take daily sales to creditor

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Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publishers of the Daily News and Daily News on Sunday, reportedly owe financially-beleaguered ReNaissance Merchant Bank (RMB) close to $2 million. This was revealed in High Court papers in which former RMB chief executive officer Patterson Timba is seeking relief to bar the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) from using […]

Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publishers of the Daily News and Daily News on Sunday, reportedly owe financially-beleaguered ReNaissance Merchant Bank (RMB) close to $2 million.

This was revealed in High Court papers in which former RMB chief executive officer Patterson Timba is seeking relief to bar the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) from using his company coffers to pay for the curator’s services.

ANZ were advanced loans by the merchant bank as far back as 2009 and continued to borrow from the bank until last year. Court papers to hand classify the loans as sub-standard, which means that the advancement of the monies did not meet due process.

RMB were put under curatorship by the RBZ in June after discovery of corporate governance violations by the merchant bank’s management. The central bank established there was systematic abuse of depositors’ funds, high level of non-performing insider and related-party exposures that included a $9,8 million loan to Timba, and gross violations of banking laws and regulations.

According to court papers, ANZ were now obliged to deposit proceeds from daily sales of their newspapers into the ReNaissance account to settle the $1,933 539,47 as of March 31 this year.

Information about the ANZ bad debt is contained in an annexure which forms part of the RBZ’s response to Timba’s suit filed last week. In his application, Timba wants the court to force the RBZ to pay monies owed to RMB and to stop the curator, Reggie Saruchera, from being paid from the merchant bank’s funds.

Part of the annexure, titled Summary of Adversely Classified Loans, reads: “The company (ANZ) is a newspaper publishing enterprise set up in 1998 and closed in 2003 for political reasons. In February 2011, the client was relicensed. The facility of $250 000 was granted in November 2010, respectively.” The bank said increased funding requests by ANZ were necessitated by the fact that ANZ was not publishing, but incurring costs.

“The company has started operations, but has only managed to pay insignificant amounts towards interest. The bank has requested client to ensure that daily sales are deposited into its account.”

The merchant bank, which scored a first by being put under such management since the economy was formally dollarised two years ago, was reported to be technically insolvent, with a negative capital of about $16,7 million as at April 30 and a 38% exposure to insiders. The curatorship is in terms of Section 53 of the Banking Act.