Mara Phones’ Local Management Offers To Buy Back Its Smartphone Manufacturing Factory On Auction
Mara Phones’ Local Management Offers To Buy Back Its Smartphone Manufacturing Factory On Auction. It has been reported that Mara Phone’s local management has made an offer to purchase its old smartphone manufacturing factory that is already in auction. The factory stopped operations and it was repossessed by the funders the IDC and Standard Bank and they put it on auction.
“The Mara Phones local management has made an offer to the lenders to acquire the company’s assets. All offers will be considered on the basis of recovery of public funds and delivery on IDC’s development mandate. All expressed interests, including the local management buyout, will be evaluated against the corporation’s need to maximise the recovery of funds and deliver on its development mandate. The preservation of established production capacity and jobs is the most desirable solution,” Tshepo Ramodibe, head of corporate affairs at the IDC told Business Insider.
Mara Phones South Africa, which is part of the global Mara Corporation and domiciled in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, launched its operations in South Africa in 2019, after which it established the state-of-the-art manufacturing plant. The company still failed to meet its obligations despite the government allowing it to have a R100 million tax break. The factory created more than 400 jobs. The IDC told Business Insider that it will be accepting all offers as this is an open auction.
The IDC wants the factory to return to developing and growing as this will grow the economy and the smartphone industry in the country. Ashish J. Thakkar is a Rwandan-based entrepreneur and he is the founder of Mara Group and Mara Foundation, and he is also the co-founder of Atlas Mara Limited. Thakkar was born in the United Kingdom, but he moved to East Africa as a teenager before founding Mara Group, a Pan-African conglomerate.
