What is left of once formidable Matiba hotel empire

African Sea Lodge also part of the Alliance Group of Hotels. (PHOTO: COURTESY)

In 1989, former Kenya Football Federation chairman, savvy businessman and politician Kenneth Stanley Njindo Matiba, was valued at Sh16.7 billion. In January 2015, Jadini Beach Hotel, one of the properties he once owned, and one of the best and most historical hotels on the 536-kilometre Kenyan coastline, closed its doors.

By then, the four-star hotel was in the hands of Simba Lodges. Simba Lodges acquired the hotel in 2013 in an auction by Barclays Bank of Kenya to recover bad debts owed by Alliance Group of Hotels, a chain of hotels that include Jadini, which were part of the vast properties Matiba owned.