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Malawi was among the foreign suitors vying for ZHL’s majority stake.
ZHL chairman Mr Ben Kumalo had indicated last year that the group would dispose of its stake in the banking unit to focus on its core business.
Yesterday chief operations officer Mr Solomon Tembo confirmed the process to divest from the bank had finally come full circle.
“ZHL has sold its stake in the bank in its entirety,” he said. “We are no longer shareholders in the bank. But I cannot comment further (on the buyer) as the asset is no longer ours.”
Commenting on the group’s financial results this year, Mr Kumalo said the reinsurance firm would sell its equity in the banking arm as part of its strategic intent to concentrate on its core business.
Mr Kumalo said the ZHL would also relinquish its hold on all none-core operations that have not been operating profitably.
He said ZHL needed to focus on and strengthen its reinsurance operations while retaining support operations with synergistic linkages.
But the disposal could also partly have been motivated by challenges around securing funding to meet regulatory minimum capital threshold.
The Reserve Bank requires US$10 million as minimum capital threshold for merchant banks and US$12,5 million for commercial banks.
Genesis was in the process of mutating into a commercial bank after it acquired commercial banking licence more than two years ago, but had been looking for funding.
Conclusion of the disposal of its stake almost coincided with the April 1, 2012 deadline given by the RBZ for undercapitalised banks to meet regulatory minimum capital levels or quit banking operations.
The bank had not met the minimum capital requirements by deadline, but was given a reprieve to comply by April 21 (next week), apparently, to allow it time to conclude discussions with its suitors.
Together with ZABG and Royal Bank the three banks faced the prospect of being forced to quit banking due to capital deficiencies.
ZABG indicated almost a fortnight ago that it had completed a tie up with Unicapital of Mauritius and local private firm Trebor and Khays.
Royal Bank said it had also consummated discussions with Kenya’s Commercial Bank of Africa, which injected US$20 million fresh capital.
It is now expected that the disposal of Genesis Bank to the consortium partners would result in immediate fresh capital injection.
Genesis Investment Bank was part of Genesis Global Finance Limited, which was in turn majority owned by Zimre Holdings Limited.
ZHL is a holding group with interests mainly in insurance and property sectors in Zimbabwe and a number of countries in the region.
Online Reporter