New twist in the legal adventures of IB Morocco. For the first time, its management expresses itself on the various legal disputes and gives us its version of this descent into hell for society. It also reveals that IB Maroc has filed a claim for damages against Bank of Africa.
For many years, the listed company IB Maroc has been experiencing significant financial difficulties. Documents on the website of the Moroccan Capital Market Authority (AMMC) report numerous profit warnings and annual results regularly in the red.
Through telephone communications and written exchanges, the company’s management, at high levels, gives below its version of the spiral that has led the company to this situation. The main elements are:
– the company had difficulties.
-it requested and obtained the setting up of a support fund, financed by BOA, with the partial guarantee (60%) of the CCG (ex-Caisse ce trale de ganartie, current Tamwilcom).
– it was unable to honor its repayment deadlines, which led BOA to demand the immediate repayment of the entire amount.
– she incriminates BOA in its difficulties, accusing this bank of having made it lose two years before the establishment of the support fund, when everything was concluded and locked.
– she asked for her own redress, rejected at this stage by the court for inadmissibility.
-she is now turning against BOA against whom she has taken legal action.
Some explanations
On December 30, after several loss-making years, IB Maroc filed an application for receivership, the first review hearing of which was held on January 5. Regarding this request, the Casablanca commercial court ruled it, on February 2, ‘inadmissible’.
More recently, to make matters worse, the company was condemned to pay 34 MDH to Bank of Africa (BOA) in the context of a dispute over the repayment of installments support fund brought to the company to deal with a complicated financial situation.
Regarding the latest decisions and in particular the request for relief, our source is optimistic. She explains to us that “this inadmissibility comes from the fact that the court needed additional financial information. They will be provided by the administrative and financial director who will attend the next hearing”.
About the lawsuit lost against BOA over the Support Fund, management confirms that the company does not intend to appeal the decision. “You can’t challenge it legally. As the bank refused to negotiate a rescheduling, it is therefore requesting the early repayment of the debt. An appeal would be doomed to failure”he confides.
He explains: “We had obtained the establishment of a support fund which involved an amount of 40 MDH, 60% covered by the Central Guarantee Fund (CCG) and 40% by BOA. The share of the CCG was managed by BOA. This fund was set up in 2018 and spread over ten years. As a guarantee, we provided a building in Rabat, which IB Maroc owns and which is free of mortgages. This support fund has been deprived of its term, because we failed to pay the monthly payments. The lawsuit that we have just lost concerns the forfeiture of the term. The bank asks for the reimbursement of all the credit, because we were unable to reimburse the support fund. The whole loan is due at time ‘t’, so the bank got a court order to that effect.”
A lawsuit has been filed by IB Maroc, engaging the banking liability of BOA
On the other hand, our source tells us that the company has taken the bank to court for payment of damages engaging BOA’s banking liability. The request was lodged with the Casablanca Commercial Court on May 24, 2022. According to the information on the portal, the court ordered a banking expertise on December 15. The next hearing will take place on March 2.
“We have taken BOA to court for damages. A lawsuit is underway for breach of its obligations. The commercial court judge deemed our request admissible and appointed a legal expert to assess the situation.
“The CGC gave us the approval for the relief fund in 2016, and BOA took two years to unlock it.
“The bank made a first contract in 2017 which was not executed. It made a second contract a year later, at the end of which it was requested 10 MDH of contribution from the shareholder in a personal capacity to improve the cash position.
During that time, the bank did not give us access to the lines, nor issued a deposit to bid on the tenders. Mr. Hadef, the president of the company, managed to raise the necessary sum, either the 10 million dirhams including 3.5 million dirhams by bank. mortgage his personal apartment”.
When a support fund is created, adds the management, the objective is to allow a company to be able to restart and refinance itself on condition that the bank maintains its lines at identical levels, but that is not what it is ‘happened.
“The situation dragged on and the company’s finances were deteriorating since we could no longer bid for calls for tenders. We therefore found a buyer. The latter was ready to take over the company, increase the capital by 20 MDH and ensure a certain level of activity”.
“We have his letter of intent and correspondence with him. He therefore went to the BOA to explain the situation, reschedule a residual overdraft of 17 MDH that we had with the bank, and define new terms for the reimbursement of the support fund. Several months have passed. Our reference contact within the bank was Mr. M’Fadel El Halaissi and his team. The latter having been placed in detention, we have lost our usual contact.”
Our source adds: “We met with a new team to communicate on the progress of the situation. It went on for months again, and nothing happened. We held a last minute meeting on July 7, 2022 during which we met the new general manager with the buyer.
“The bank told us that it would provide us with an answer within two weeks to put in place a system that could save the company. Despite the buyer’s reminders to the bank, there was no response.
“In the end, in the last quarter of 2022, the buyer sent us a letter to tell us that he was giving up saving IB Maroc for lack of a response from the bank. This is what led us to file for bankruptcy and seek receivership.
READ ALSO
IB Morocco: the request for adjustment declared “inadmissible”