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[2008-05-22] East African cables CEO quits
The group CEO of Kenya’s largest cables and conductors maker, East African Cables, has resigned.
The iconic Mugo Kibati, who catapulted the firm to blue-chip status, early Wednesday morning told employees that he was quitting after the board had agreed to let him go.
He is, however, expected to remain at the firm up to the end of June as the deep-pocketed owners headhunt his replacement.
The chief of the Transcentury-dominated group has been at the helm since 2004.
Refuted reports
Wednesday, he told the Nation his resignation had been in the works for months now.
However, he refuted reports that there had been fallout with the board over strategy, adding that the company’s focus remained expansion and diversification to grow the business.
The firm is gearing to enter Burundi after setting up in the other East African Community countries.
“Everything we have done [is] in complete agreement with the board…honestly management implements what the board has decided,” he said, on suggestion that he had differed with the principals on strategy.
When prodded further, he said: “I have had healthy debates with the board but they have been quite supportive.”
He revealed that when he informed the board of his decision to move on, they had initially asked him to stay.
Mr Kibati, a graduate of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is viewed in the market as one of the youngest and brightest managers to have ever graced corporate Kenya.
Speculation has lately linked him to a number of telecoms businesses.
Cables is over 70 per cent owned by the fast-surging Kenyan investment group, Transcentury.
They acquired a distinctly colourless establishment from the Naushad Merali’s Sameer Group in 2003 and under Mr Kibati’s leadership, transformed it into one of the most sought after employers in town.
Whereas the company has been listed since 1973, it was not until the coming of Mr Kibati that the market paid any attention to it.
Within months, the price surged high enough to warrant splitting every share 10 times.
It is currently trading at Sh42 or over 11 times what it was trading before the takeover.
Under the tutelage of Mr Kibati, 39, the company last year made Sh598 million before taxation on a Sh3.5 billion turnover.
At the time the ambitious Transcentury took over, it was doing turnover of a paltry Sh400.
Daunting task
Thereafter, the company has acquired new manufacturing premises on Dar es Salaam Road, Nairobi, acquired a company in Tanzania — where it is into partnership with French firm Nexans — and established distribution structures in Rwanda and Uganda.
Mr Kibati laughed off the suggestion that Transcentury members had lost stomach for his testosterone-charged expansion.
The investment group now faces the daunting task of headhunting a suitable replacement.
Source: Nation Media Group 2007
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