Harare - The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) has been rapped for acting too late in suspending conglomerate Meikles after it emerged that it had allegedly manipulated the amount it was owed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
Meikles and South Africa’s Pick n Pay jointly own TM Supermarkets.
The company was founded by Thomas Meikles in 1892 after he and two brothers emigrated from Scotland to South Africa.
Thomas opened the five-star Victoria Falls Hotel, the flagship of the now diverse conglomerate, in Victoria Falls and followed it up with Meikles Hotel in Harare, entrenching the company’s presence in the country’s economy.
Stockbrokers and market dealers in Harare said yesterday that a meeting of the ZSE had been called on Friday last week where the suspension of Meikles from the ZSE was endorsed pending investigation into its six months’ results to September 2014.
In its market update yesterday afternoon, the ZSE said: “Meikles Limited was suspended from trading with effect from February 16 2015.”
It did not give a reason for the suspension.
ZSE chief executive Alban Chirume said: “The temporary suspension was necessitated by the carrying amount of the asset for the year to March 31 2014 placed with the central bank.
“On February 13 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe received a written submission from the Reserve Bank on the asset’s carrying amount, information which was availed to the ZSE. The ZSE believes that the information received is material and price sensitive.
“On this basis, the ZSE deems it important to temporarily suspend trading while clarity is being sought in the interest of maintaining market integrity through promotion of equal dissemination of information,” he said.
John Moxon, the chairman of Meikles Limited, was not available for comment.
A former Reserve Bank adviser, Munyaradzi Kereke, lifted the lid on Meikles’ “erroneous” financials this month when he alleged that the blue chip Zimbabwean company – which has diverse interests in mining, hotels and agro-processing – had inflated the debt it was owed by the central bank.
“They (Meikles) created a stock exchange bubble which is tantamount to fraud. When you artificially present falsehoods on the stock exchange you uplift the stock price or keep it where it is when in effect it was supposed to fall. The stock exchange has been tampered with,” said Kereke, now a legislator who sits on the parliamentary committee on finance and economic planning.
Meikles said in its interim results that it was owed about $90 million (R1 billion) by the central bank when, according to Kereke, it was owed about $34.1m as at December 2008.
Efe Securities, the brokerage and advisory firm, tweeted on Monday afternoon that Meikles had been suspended over its 2014 financial accounts. “Meikles was today suspended from trading on the ZSE as regulators seek clarification on F2014 financials,” it said.
Market traders said yesterday that the suspension would be a blow to Meikles’ corporate reputation.
“Financial manipulation on the part of Meikles, if proven, will likely leave the company with its reputation in tatters and it will take a long time to correct that,” said a market dealer.
Meikles initially said the government had expressed a willingness to pay its debt through treasury bills.