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The sale of Chococam, one of Cameroon’s oldest industrial companies, is nearing completion, but a long-running legal fight waged by billionaire businessman Baba Ahmadou Danpullo is casting a shadow over South African group Tiger Brands’ departure from the country.
Tiger Brands agreed in November to sell its 74.69% stake in Chococam, the cocoa processor and confectioner, to the local investment fund Minkama Capital, promoted by Fabrice Ndjodo and backed by BGFIBank. The deal now awaits clearance from the competition authorities of the Central African economic bloc, Cemac, one of the final approvals needed to close.
Behind that regulatory timeline sits a dispute that has quietly weighed on the transaction. Since 2022, Danpullo’s camp has secured a series of precautionary seizures on part of Chococam’s funds, freezing a cumulative 5.612 billion CFA francs, about $9.7 million, held across Société Générale Cameroun, Standard Chartered Bank Cameroon, BICEC and SCB Cameroun. The seizures are one front in a wider war that has entangled several Cameroonian subsidiaries of South African groups.
The matter surfaced at a ministerial meeting on April 20, when Tiger Brands chief executive Tjaart Kruger, chief financial officer Thushen Govender, Minkama’s Ndjodo and South Africa’s high commissioner to Cameroon were received by Trade Minister Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana. Officially, the meeting was to review progress on the Chococam sale and the remaining authorizations. The frozen funds were also discussed, according to government sources close to the talks. Neither Tiger Brands nor the other parties responded to requests for comment.
The buyer appears to have insulated itself from the risk. Government sources said the 5.612 billion francs under seizure were not included in the value agreed for the transaction, because Minkama did not want to pay for cash whose availability still depends on the outcome of an old court case. That structure would let the fund take over Chococam’s industrial operations, its brands, its assets and its commercial network without paying for a treasury the company cannot currently access. How exactly the risk is being handled, whether retained by the seller, isolated in a dedicated account or covered by an indemnity clause, remains confidential.
For Tiger Brands, the Danpullo litigation adds to an already long list of reasons to leave Cameroon. Chococam has steadily lost ground to local competition, with revenue falling from $67.1 million in 2022 to $46.7 million in 2024, a contraction of more than 30% in two years. Its market share, above 70% in 2019, had slipped to around 61% by 2023. The company remains one of the country’s main local cocoa processors and a historic industrial employer, with products distributed across several Cemac states that account for roughly a quarter of its sales, which is why Cameroonian authorities are keen to prevent an old legal battle from disrupting the business or its handover.
The dispute is, for now, frozen. The most recent turn came on April 14, 2025, when the first president of the Supreme Court issued an order suspending all proceedings pitting Danpullo’s vehicle Bestinver against MTN Cameroon, Chococam and Broadband Telecom before the Littoral court of appeal and the courts of Douala and Wouri. The aim was to stop those courts ruling until the Supreme Court’s combined chambers decide whether the cases should remain in the Littoral region or move to another appeal court. No hearing date has been made public, and the funds remain blocked pending that decision.
That order followed an episode that had briefly suggested a thaw. On February 26, the Littoral court of appeal ordered the release of seizures on the accounts of MTN Cameroon and Chococam at Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and BICEC. The same day, Bestinver’s lawyers obtained a fresh precautionary seizure on the assets, relying on a September 2022 order from the Douala-Bonanjo court of first instance.
The Danpullo camp’s total claim is now valued at 275.5 billion CFA francs, about $476 million. It comprises a principal debt of 200 billion francs, 21.6 billion in rents it says were wrongly collected, 22.1 billion in recovery costs, and interest charged at an annual rate of 3.25%.
The conflict traces back thousands of kilometres from Douala. It began with the seizure, and later the sale in South Africa, of real estate held by companies controlled by Danpullo, after First National Bank, a subsidiary of FirstRand, cited unpaid debts. Danpullo has described the episode as spoliation and chose to target MTN and Chococam in Cameroon, two subsidiaries of South African groups whose shareholding, he contends, overlaps with that of the bank. None of his allegations has been tested to a final judgment, and the companies dispute his claims.
Three years on, that cross-border battle continues to shape the exit of one of the oldest South African industrialists in Cameroon. Whether the Chococam sale closes on schedule now depends as much on the Supreme Court’s ruling and the competition regulators as on the willingness of the parties to keep the litigation walled off from the deal.
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