Sameer Africa to Fire over 50 Employees starting February 1

Sameer Africa will terminate 52 employees from its workforce in its latest corporate restructuring. In a letter to the Nairobi County Labor offices, the company’s acting Managing Director, Peter Gitonga says the company also intends to close its various tyre centers and offices across Kenya and release staff, drawn from both management and unionable cadres.

The layoff and office closures will be done in batches between February 1 and end of April 2020.

“Arising from the foregoing, the board of directors has resolved to restructure the company further by aligning the company operations to become more of a trading and distributorship outfit,” Peter said in the letter.

The firm’s financial struggles continued even after its change of strategy in 2016 when it stopped local manufacturing of its key tyre brand, Yana, and opted to outsource from Asia.

Sameer group head count has been diminishing in the recent years, shrinking by 120 from 288 staff in 2017 to 168 at the end of 2018.

In August 2019, the firm laid off its CEO Simon Ngigi, less than a year after his appointment in October 2018.

Speaking during the last downsizing, Erastus Mwongera, the firm’s chairman, said the company has “been restructuring since we changed the business model from manufacturing to retail. This comes with adjustments.”

Sameer widened its net loss 15.8 times to 182.8 million in the first six months of 2019, with stock outs and counterfeit products complicating its recovery efforts.