Phil Karanja regret at investments that cost him millions of shillings
By Rajab ZawadiRenowned filmmaker Phillip Karanja says he regrets some investment decisions that cost him the loss of millions of shillings.
One such decision was to invest in land among other missed opportunities that he says would have made him millions of shillings if he had known better how to go about it.
Phil as popularly known, says the lack of a father figure to hold his hand in his 20s, when he was starting to make enough money, is to blame for these poor investment decisions.
The 37-year-old, Phil burst into the limelight when he joined the once-popular TV show Tahidi High.
At the time, he and his business partner Abel Mutua, who also shot to fame on Tahidi High, were still in their second year of film studies.
As cast members of Tahidi High, they were paid Sh500, which rose to Sh20,000 by the time they left the show.
Phil and Abel starred on Tahidi High for four years and by the time they left, they had established themselves as budding film directors and scriptwriters. Their zeal began to land them extra jobs, the most immediate being with the Mother-in-law TV program, where Phil met his ex-wife, actress Catherine Kamau.
Phil worked as the director of Mother-in-Law while Abel was the scriptwriter. They doubled this with their acting in Tahidi High.
The filmmaker says the demanding nature of the two productions kept them grounded to the extent that they lost friends as they rarely found free time to hang out. Phil says that at one point it got so bad that his mother had to make an appointment to see him.
“Because we were never out partying and even our friends stopped asking us out because we were always working seven days a week, people would ask us what we were doing with the money we were making,” Phil said in a YouTube interview.
Growing up in poverty in Nairobi, Phil says he never wasted his money, so he made sure he saved as much as he could and when he felt he had enough, he started investing, where some investments turned out to be scams or ended in losses.
“People ask us where the money went because we never went out to party like our peers. I never wanted to be poor again in my life. We were very clear with ourselves, we wanted a soft life. At 22 I bought my first piece of land which turned out to be a scam, I never got the title deed so I lost the investment. At 24, we both bought our first cars which were Mercedes Benz, albeit old models. I bought mine for Sh400,000. All I wanted was wealth, and that’s still my goal today.” Phil says.
Although he admits he was young at the time and missed a lot of opportunities, they were good life lessons that only made him better.
“After I lost the land I was afraid (to invest in the land again), the next time I bought the land I was 32. I wish I had a father figure to hold my hands because if I hadn’t been scared and had been consistent and bought more land, the investment would have been more worthwhile today,” he adds.
At some point, he also wanted to invest in the Nairobi stock market, but that didn’t work out so well either.
“I remember going to one of the companies dealing in the stock market. I had Sh50,000 that I wanted to invest in the stock market but when I noticed how the people in that office looked at me with judgmental eyes because I was young, I gave up on the venture and just went and bought a brand new phone with the money”.
Phil says the stock he wanted to invest in was Safaricom shares.
“At the time, a Safaricom share was selling for three shillings. If I had invested that Sh50,000 right now, it would have turned into Sh1.6 million.”