Court of Appeal blocks sale of real estate assets owned by Ugandan magnate Patrick Bitature

The Court of Appeal in Kampala, Uganda’s capital city, has once again blocked the advertisement and auctioning of four prime properties owned by Ugandan magnate Patrick Bitature.

The auctioning was spurred by a $30-million loan dispute between the leading businessman and Johannesburg-based Africa-focused fund manager, Vantage Capital.

The injunction issued by Christopher Gashibarake, the sitting judge at the Court of Appeal, comes after the Commercial Division of Uganda’s High Court denied an earlier application by entities owned by Bitature to prevent the sale of his properties held under Simba Properties Investment and Simba Telecom.

The recent Court of Appeal decision in the long-running loan dispute comes at a crucial time for Bitature, who has been at odds with Vantage Capital after the Africa-focused fund manager threatened to auction off his real estate empire in Kampala.

The 30-unit Elizabeth Royal Apartments in Kololo, the Skyz Hotel in Naguru, and the Moyo Close Apartments in Kololo, a residential and commercial neighborhood in Kampala, are part of the Ugandan magnate’s Kampala real estate empire.

What began as a promising partnership in 2014, when Bitature received $10 million from Vantage Capital to invest in the Moyo Close Apartments and Skyz Hotel in Naguru, has quickly devolved into an estranged alliance, with reports claiming that the businessman has yet to repay the lender.

Companies associated with Bitature are also embroiled in a separate legal battle with Absa Bank over a multimillion-dollar loan.

When confronted with the repayment of the $10-million loan that he obtained from Vantage Capital, which has tripled in value to about $30 million after interest, charges, and penalties, Bitature said difficulties arising from delays in Uganda’s oil and gas sector undermined his ability to repay.