Harare-TSL group Chief Executive Officer Washington Matsaira is leaving the agro focused conglomerate after 6 years of steering the ship. The announcement was made today by board chairman Anthony Mandiwanza at an AGM in the capital.

Matsaira was appointed as group CE of TSL Limited on 1 January 2012 after a sterling career as a banker, a period over which he presided over one of the top local banks.

At Standard Chartered Matsaira was appointed CEO in July of 2001 and led the bank over the next decade before his appointment at TSL.

The turn from being a banker to an industrialist in a agro biased entity was highly unlikely and odds were stacked against him to succeed.

Matsaira however proved to be up to the task and has overseen what board chairman Mandiwanza called a successful turnaround at TSL.

Over the  period Matsaira had been CE, TSL has enjoyed a steady and healthy constant average topline growth rate of 8% per annum leaving TSL a year after which profit after tax grew by 74% to $4.84 million. Perhaps it was a make-up for the 3 years past, under which TSL registered year on year profitability decline.

Under Matasaira the company’s asset size has gone up at average of 7% per annum to the current $107 million as at December 2017 a first breech over $100 million mark in the company’s history.

The growth in asset size is in part due to acquisitive growth which in turn has been helped by the improvement in free cashflow as the company’s operating profit grew over the past few years.

In his stead Pat Devenish has been appointed, himself not a new face to the company and the market in general. Pat Devenish has been with the TSL group unit TSF before his departure 8 years ago.

Devenish a dedicated farmer, has previously served as chief executive of the now disbanded AICO Holdings then a controlling shareholder in a number of companies including Cottco, Olivine and Seedco.

He began his career as a tobacco auctioneer with TSF in 1978 before moving on to Auction Holdings in Malawi between 1983 to 1985.