The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has finally acquired the former Saygin Dima Textile S.C. under its own asset management company, Commercial Nominees (CN), and renamed it as SEDA Textile Company Plc, The Reporter has learnt.
It is to be recalled that, last year, CBE has decided to put Saygin Dima on the auction block after the later failed to honor its loan obligations to it. However, the auction failed to attract buyers despite repeated announcement by the Bank.
Saygin Dima’s loan obligation to CBE totals 574 million birr.
The former Saygin Dima, which was established by Turkish investors, was established back in 2008. It was first established by a joint venture of the investors and Ethiopian government through the then Privatization and Supervision Agency.
The Turkish investors which were invited by the later Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, have then relocated their entire textile company from Turkey to Ethiopia.
Through such arrangement, the defunct Saygin Dima was established in 60/40 arrangement where the government contributed the 60 percent, valued at 625 million birr, and the rest by the Turkish investors.
However, later, the government withdrew from the joint venture after unsatisfactory performance of the factory. The Turkish investors managed the factory by themselves since 2011.
Yet, the company failed to pay back the loans which it took from CBE which led the bank to foreclose on its property.
For consecutive auctions, there were no buyers and so the Bank decided to acquire the whole company, an official of the Bank told The Reporter.
In the middle of the auction process, the factory suffered damages from a fire instigated by protest in Oromia region.
“The Bank has now finished the renovation of the factory and now it has become operation,” said the official.
Located in Sebeta, 24km southwest of Addis Ababa (Oromia Region), the factory was established on a 17 hectare plot of land.
Established in 1965 by CBE, CN, on its part, is mostly involved in asset management, fund administrations and payments administration businesses.
