Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

A financial consultancy firm is demanding Sh340 million from Centum Investment Company following an alleged agreement to raise funds at a commission for it’s real estate subsidiary Centum Real Estate.

Raisin Limited is claiming a finder’s fee capped at 2 per cent of funds raised after the Centum Real Estate Limited signed an agreement with Global Emerging Markets (GEM) for a 36-month, Sh17 billion share subscription facility following a public listing.

The consultants allege Centum went behind their backs to secure Sh17 billion through the issuance of new shares to the Luxembourg-based equity fund in violation of a contract they had signed.

Raisin Limited insists it had entered an agreement with the real estate firm on June 17, 2021 where Raisin would source for investors and would receive a commission of two percent of all funds raised.

Raisin lawyers DBM Mosota wrote to Centum on January 17 with the demands, saying it sourced for investors and introduced Global Emerging Markets (GEM) to Centum.

“In blatant breach of clause seven of the agreement, your company through its sole Shareholder and directors circumvented the terms of the agreement and commenced negotiations with GEM leading to execution of an investment agreement of Sh17 billion between Global Yield LLC under GEM and Centum Real Estate Limited,” read the letter in part.

Yesterday, Centum denied the existence of such agreement and warned against what it called “extortion” ploy.

“We are not aware of such agreement. Let the one making the claim give you correspondences to the same. This may just be someone trying to extort Centum using the media,” Centum Investment CEO James Mworia said.

Mworia added; “I personally took charge of the negotiations of the deal and was not aware of any other party involved. Because we secured the funding, someone now wants to come and claim he had a role in the deal. That’s an imposter.”

It is however emerging that Raisin may have had an agreement with its subsidiary of Centum Development to raise funds from the Paris offices GEMS but the deal did not materialise.

Instead, the parent company approached the New York based GEMS independently and offered a share subscription to raise the funds. Although the New York and Paris office are related, Centum insists that the two work independently.