Nairobi, Feb. 2 -- They came, saw but failed to conquer. And after nearly a decade of cash drain, Mwalimu Sacco has left Spire Bank having been schooled on how not to invest.

All the deposits and loans in all the 10 branches of Spire Bank were on the midnight of Tuesday passed to Equity Bank Kenya following the effecting of a deal that received the blessings of the Treasury last week.

Mwalimu Sacco chairman Joel Gachari says that while the Sacco believes it was properly guided by the "best" transaction advisors when it acquired a 75 percent stake in Spire, it didn't quite evaluate what it was getting into.

"We didn't calculate properly what we were getting into, mostly looking at the future prospects," said Mr Gachari on Wednesday, sho...