Ms. Rose Kimotho the previous owner of K24 has revealed how she lost ownership of the company.
This was after a Sh12 million overdraft ballooned to Sh70 million pushing her to allow the ownership of the station to change.
She narrates the story in a continuing podcast series about former TV anchor Louis Otieno.
“CBA called me for a meeting and said the overdraft was now at Sh70 million. They said, ‘Your overdraft is now Sh70 million. Initially, you had an overdraft of Sh12 million. You’ll never get out of this.’ And of course, with an overdraft, the interest is humongous, and it (grows every 24 hours). It just kept growing,” she said.
She remembers bank officials asking her, “How do you intend to pay for this loan?”
They went on to tell her that she had the option of bringing in an investor or being bought out.
“The bank officials asked how I intended to pay back the loan. He told me It is either an investor comes in or they buy you. And that’s what happened. And that’s how we lost K24. And what always haunted me was because of the circumstances. What could I have done better? Maybe I should not have started with a bank loan. Maybe I should not have started with a dream,” Ms. Kimotho shares.
Kimotho said that after taking the overdraft, post-election violence hit, and that the station was hit hard. At the time she had poached Louis Otieno who was at the time a 'hot cake' on the TV screens.
“The election period was followed with six months of zero income and six months of costs and no income and six months of an overdraft with CBA bank getting deeper and deeper,” says Ms. Kimotho.
Adding,
“The dreams, the whatever we planned of K24 just went down the drain. And It always haunted me that I’ve always felt I would one day have an opportunity to work with Louis,” she added.
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