Speaking at Econet’s AGM last Friday, Nyambirai said the mobile telecommunication company had significant commercial interest in Afre as their life assurance product, Ecolife, is powered by FML which is a subsidiary of Afre.
“We did not get into Afre by accident, it was a deliberate decision taken in line with the company’s strategy to roll out insurance-related value added services”, he said.
Econet made a decision to appoint directors to the board of Afre to safeguard its more than 2 million subscribers who are policyholders under Ecolife, added Nyambirai.
As for other non-telecoms assets that were acquired during the hyper-inflationary era, CE Douglas Mboweni told the AGM that Econet had started disposing of them.
Negotiations for the sale of Mutare Bottling Company are at an advanced stage while the shareholding in RTG was disposed recently. In addition Econet has also recommended that Afre dispose of its RTG stake as the telecoms group wants to totally cut ties with RTG.
Nyambirai also gave an emotional and detailed account of Econet’s dispute with TrustCo of Namibia over the Ecolife product. He said TrustCo does not own Ecolife but it just provided the computer system on which the product operates.
Post published in: Business