Tuskys earns reprieve as court stops CBD auction

Troubled retailer Tuskys has earned reprieve in the courts following the stoppage of a planned auction of its property in Nairobi’s Central Business District (CBD).

The auction of the five-storey building which housed its Imara Branch had been scheduled for Wednesday.

Equity Bank had reportedly sought to sell the building in a bid to recover a Ksh.650 million loan owed by the beleaguered supermarket chain through auctioneers - Antique Auctions.

In a ruling on Wednesday however, High Court Judge David Majanja stopped the planned auction with only hours to the auctioneer’s hammer and directed that Antique Auctions appear in court on Monday.

Tuskys had protested the auction, first advertised in local dailies on February 14.

In its argument, the retailer argued that the property is covered by the chain’s ongoing administration which seeks to give the store the best opportunity to survive as per provisions in the 2015 Act.

According to Tuskys, the stripping of its assets would be detrimental to the chain’s life-line and would extinguish hopes for creditors to recover in excess of Ksh.6 billion in debts it owes.

Tuskys remains a going concern and is currently the subject of a wind-up petition which is led by Hotpoint Appliances Limited- a creditor of the supermarket chain.

At the end of last year, Tuskys had only seven operational branches revealing the extent of its distress since owning in excess of 60 stores at the start of 2020.