Aside from acrimonious litigation in his preferred UK courts, Rajan Mahtani always had a healthy risk appetite.

Owned and ran Finance Bank for years, spawning two people who used that launchpad to take divergent routes.

Noel Nkhoma and Miles Sampa.

Let's start with how these two emerged from what were supposedly cushy senior positions in the bank.

Rajan Mahtani has always been rumored to be at risk politically because of close ties to power - be it at State House or aspiring presidents.

Going back to pre-2011, the business man was thought to be financing Michael Sata's bid for the presidency and in turn ruffling the blue feathers of the MMD, now led by career diplomat Rupiah Banda.

Banda had taken the reigns of Zambia after the passing of LPM.

Mahtani's association with Sata, who was riding a wave that seemed destined for State House, invited the Bank of Zambia to pore over the books of Finance Bank.

Central Bank found a delicious cocktail of misdemeanors including breach of financial rules.

Bank of Zambia seized the bank and in a deal structured in the dead of the night, sold Finance Bank Zambia to First National Bank for K27 billion.

Mahtani was seeing the sort of machinations that he had enforced to build to his business now used on him.

It was around this period that Noel Nkhoma and Miles Sampa found their association not only with Finance Bank but with the board chairman Mahtani wobbling.

Sampa and Nkhoma left the bank, with reported issues around their golden parachutes, i.e compensation.

Sampa, with his uncle now installed as Zambia's Republican President and a parliamentary seat as MP of Matero, bounced back in some style as Deputy Minister of Lusaka Province.

Apologies, I'll come back to this thread intermittently as I'm doing some landscaping today. Will be back.