Financial statements from Pevans East Africa which owns betting firm, SportPesa has shown the amount of money its founders earned as dividends.
According to Business Daily, audited management accounts indicated that Pevans founders pocketed dividends totaling KSh 7.6 billion in four and a half years.
Those who pocketed the dividends include Asenath Wachera Maina, Guerassim Nikolov, Paul Ndungu, and Ronald Karauri.
Maina and Nikolov earned KSh 1.6 billion each from their stakes of 21 percent each in the betting firm.
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At the same time, Ndungu earned KSh 1.3 billion while Karauri got KSh 535 million.
Pevans started paying dividends in 2015 when it made a distribution totaling KSh 1.57 billion and paid a record dividend of KSh 4.3 billion in 2016.
However, the payout fell drastically to KSh 290.3 million in 2017 but rose to KSh 876.5 million in 2018.
In 2019, Pevans paid a dividend of KSh 559.9 million and ceased operations over alleged non-payment of taxes that the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) computed at KSh 95 billion.
It comprised of a principal tax of KSh 66.7 billion, a penalty of KSh 13.3 billion and interest of KSh 14.9 billion.
Pevans launched SportPesa in 2014 whose shareholders include Maina with a 21 percent stake, Ndungu (17 percent), Karauri (seven percent) and Macharia (three percent).
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As earlier reported on WoK, SportPesa made a net profit of KSh 12.9 billion for its Kenyan owners five years after entering the Kenyan market.
This equals to KSh 215 million net profit every month or KSh 2.58 billion every month.
In 2018, a court report had put the figure at a staggering KSh 149.7 billion every year with average daily bets estimated at KSh 408 million.
In the same year, SportPesa announced that it had paid KSh 129.6 billion as winnings, leaving it with KSh 20.1 billion.
The firm is also said to have generated net profit in excess of KSh 10 billion.