Smooth Promotions Limited, owner of music channel, HIP TV, and organiser of the Headies Awards, has approached the Court of Appeal after the Federal High Court, Abuja, granted a motion ex parte filed by Heritage Bank Plc to acquire the firm over a purported N668m debt.
Smooth Promotions has also petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accusing Heritage Bank of manipulating its bank account and levying excess charges on the firm to the tune of N185m.
It was learnt that Smooth Operations, which operates an account with number 5100021479, applied for credit facilities from the bank between 2013 and 2015, some of which were not granted in full.
The loans included an overdraft facility of N20m on August 12, 2013; an enhancement of the N20m loan to N60m on September 5, 2013; an overdraft facility to the tune of N40m and another loan of N250m to finance the purchase of outdoor broadcasting vehicle.
The company also applied for an overdraft facility of N35m to augment its working capital and a consolidated term loan facility of N601m out of which only N176m was designated as disbursable .
Part of the security for the facilities was an all assets debenture over the company’s property as well as a deed of personal guaranteed by Mr Ayo Animashaun in favour of the bank.
This implied that in the event that the company was unable to offset its debts, Heritage Bank could immediately appoint a receiver and take over its assets.
The firm said although the full was not released which frustrated its plans of expanding its operations, it repaid the loans.
The company said to its surprise, Heritage Bank in a letter dated February 13, 2017, claimed that it owed them the sum of N668m.
With the conviction that the purported indebtedness was false, Smooth Promotions engaged the services of an auditing firm, Messrs SMD Consulting, to undertake a forensic investigation of its bank account.
The firm said the investigation revealed that the bank levied excess charges on the firm to the tune of N185m.
However, the bank approached Justice I.N. Oweibo and filed a motion ex parte praying the court to affirm Gani Abubakar as the receiver.
