Nairobi,KENYA: Uchumi CEO Julius Kipngetich has resigned
This is according to a statement by the troubled supermarket chain which said that Kipngetich whose contract ended in October would be succeeded by the Chief Mohamed Ahmed Ahmed in the interim as a suitable candidate was being searched for.
“The board of directors has commenced the process of identifying a suitably qualified successor to the Chief Executive officer and will in due course unveiled the identified successor” part of the statement reads.
Kipngetich joined the troubled supermarket Chain in August 2015 after his predecessor Jonathan Ciano was fired alongside other managers over mismanagement.
Kipngetich had previously worked for the Kenya Wildlife service and the Equity group.
The supermarket chain has over the past two years shut down several of it branches in Kenya and its subsidiaries in East Africa put under liquidation .
Auditors have in the past said that the chain requires an injection of over sh 5 billion to get back on track and in August the supermarket announced that it would raise shs 3.5B through equity financing over a time frame of 120 days .
In the just ended financial year, the Supermarket chain posted losses of sh 1.7 billion down from the previous financial year where the losses stood at shs 2.8 billion.
Competition in the Kenyan retail sector has heightened since 2015 with the entry of French retail giant Carrefour and and South Africa’s Massmart holdings which owns Game retail stores.
