By the way,Nakumatt UKAY will soon have to be demolished given that it has been built on top of a river.

Me thinks thats the reason they built Westgate is so close,just to cushion themselves because it never really made any biz sense to me in having 2 supermarkets that close to each other catering/competing for the same clientele.



When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way,you will command the attention of the world.

***********************

Indecision and delays are the parents of failure.

@ispoa - Ukay is also leased... The SMART decision was to convert UKAY to 24 hours... very successful... then they started with Prestige among others going 24 hours.
*** Even if UKAY is demolished,they will make Westgate 24 hours.

Greedy when others are fearful,Very fearful when others are greedy - to paraphrase WB

Prestige is leased. Its owners are the ones carrying onthe ongoing constructions cum expansions. Rumours have it that Nakumatt are required to vacate (Prestige) in which case the proximity to Junction will cushion them from loss of customers.

My thoughts would incline towards a scenario where its bankers,on getting hold of the possible external capital injection talks,froze some facilities to the supermarket aaiting outcome,this effectively impacting on its cashflow negatively...thats my take.


Nairoberry-'The darker the berry the sweeter the juice'

@Nairobbery - Why wud a bank stop/freeze facilities when a firm is looking at an injection of cash? I wud have thought that a cash injection would make Nakumatt more attractive to the banks.

Greedy when others are fearful,Very fearful when others are greedy - to paraphrase WB

Nakumatt are selling off a 40% stake to a U.K party. While it is true that the loss of their Downtown and Thika Rd branches + ongoing expansion may have put serious pressure on the their working capital,the reason why they started taking long to pay is that Barclays suddenly came up with new rules capping credit facilities to family owned businesses at a max ceiling of kshs1b. The supermarket belongs to the Shah family and was affected. This new requirement threw them into confusion as the Co. operates large ODs and now their working cap. source had suddenly been turned off. TRM,or Ramamurthy,the Operations director and public face of the supermarket had to take a back seat - this is because the new partner on board will be professionalising everything,and coming up with formal structures for the co.


..there's nothing,absolutely nothing really,that I can't do if I put my mind to it.