The Group was established in 2011, with Brainworks Capital Management as the holding company, which was incorporated in Zimbabwe. The Company was private-owned with investments held under a private-equity investment model.
In 2015, Brainworks Capital Management embarked on the Scheme of Reconstruction which sought to move the Group’s holding company structure (legal and operational) from Zimbabwe to Mauritius. This was achieved through a share swap by Brainworks Capital Management shareholders of their shares for shares in Brainworks Limited, a company incorporated in Mauritius. This resulted in Brainworks Limited becoming the new holding company for the Group.
Brainworks Limited successfully listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, (“JSE”) in 2017, becoming the first Zimbabwean oriented investment holding entity to do so. This transformation into a public company resulted in the need to focus and consolidate the investment sectors and exit financial services and focus on hospitality and real estate. Following this change in the investment model and the listing on the JSE, shareholders considered this development significant enough to warrant a new identity and therefore the company changed its name in 2019 to Arden Capital Limited.
A strategic review of the Groups’ prospects concluded that the JSE listing had not provided the Company, and therefore Shareholders, with the benefits the Company had hoped to achieve on listing. This coupled with the losses experienced by the Group because of the Covid-19 pandemic, a strategic decision was made to delist from the JSE in 2021. This was achieved though the unbundling of all the issued shares in Arden Enterprises Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arden Capital Limited at the time, through which the Group holds its investments.
The Group as part of its long-term strategy has managed to achieve the following.
- Successfully exited non-core investments, the financial service and logistics sector.
- Successfully repaid long outstanding debts, all the loans from financers and related parties
- Simplified the Arden structure to eliminate value traps between the holding company and the operating subsidiaries this includes the African Sun Limited takeover of Dawn Limited and the delisting of Arden Capital Limited and Dawn Limited.