US hedge fund in battle to control Kenyan cloud storage firm
BSP Fund, British national Ripduman Sohan, American Miguel Granier, and Kenya's Erik Hersman (above) and Riyaz Bachani have sued Phares Kariuki, Brian Muita and Aaron Mbowa as they seek to retain control of Angani. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA | NMG
BSP Fund, British national Ripduman Sohan, American Miguel Granier, and Kenya-based Eric Hersman and Riyaz Bachani have sued locals Phares Kariuki, Brian Muita and Aaron Mbowa as they seek to retain control of Angani.
The foreign shareholders claim that Mr Kariuki and Mr Muita are former senior officials of Angani who have refused to relinquish control of the firm alongside Mr Mbowa whom they say was “accidentally” appointed to the Board of Directors.
The row has revealed Angani’s ownership structure. BSP is listed as the largest investor with 2,619 shares. Mssrs Muita, Kariuki, Sohan and Bachani each have 2,000 shares.
A bitter ownership battle has emerged among cloud data storage firm Angani Limited’s shareholders pitting American hedge fund BSP, former Google policy manager for Africa Ory Okolloh and 14 other local and foreign individuals and companies.
BSP Fund, British national Ripduman Sohan, American Miguel Granier, and Kenya-based Erik Hersman and Riyaz Bachani have sued locals Phares Kariuki, Brian Muita and Aaron Mbowa as they seek to retain control of Angani.
The foreign shareholders claim that Mr Kariuki and Mr Muita are former senior officials of Angani who have refused to relinquish control of the firm alongside Mr Mbowa whom they say was “accidentally” appointed to the Board of Directors.
The three Kenyan IT specialists have denied ever being ousted from the board, and insist that the foreign shareholders are attempting a coup.
The row has revealed Angani’s ownership structure. BSP is listed as the largest investor with 2,619 shares. Mssrs Muita, Kariuki, Sohan and Bachani each have 2,000 shares.
Others are Mr Mbowa (500 shares), Mr Africa’s Talking (476 shares), Savannah Fund (238 shares), Emmanuel Kala (200 shares), Africa Angels Network (191 shares), Ms Okolloh (110 shares), Samuel Gikandi (100 shares), Eston Kimani (100 shares) and Pule Taukabong (40 shares).
“Mr Mbowa is an accidental director in that he was accidentally appointed to Angani’s Board and had agreed with his fellow directors that he would rectify the error and resign from the Board; to date he has failed to do so. The defendants jeopardized Angani’s operations, resulting in inability to service its clients thereby exposing it to potential liabilities,” BSP says.
BSP now claims that despite voluntarily leaving Angani in October, 2015 Mr Kariuki, Mr Muita and Mr Mbowa have refused to relinquish passwords to the cloud data storage firm’s technical platform, and have sabotaged operations.
The American hedge fund holds that the trio operates a competing firm, Node Africa Limited.
But the three local IT specialists insist that they have never sabotaged Angani, which remains the intellectual property of Mr Muita.
They claim that Mr Bachani hired hackers to interfere with the technical platform, after BSP and the other plaintiffs failed to pay Mr Muita for it.
Editor's note: This story has been edited to include responses filed in court by Mr Kariuki, Mr Muita and Mr Mbowa. The headline has also been edited to remove Ory Okolloh, a shareholder of Angani Limited. Ory’s picture has been replaced by that of Erik Hersman to illustrate the story.
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