- Femi Otedola has further increased his lead as the largest shareholder of FBN Holdings by purchasing N17.2 billion worth of shares on Monday
- The latest acquisition comes four days after he regained lead of the HoldCo from Oba Otudeko’s Barbican Capital Limited
- The move indicates that the toe-to-toe battle over the control of FBN Holdings between Otedola and other shareholders is far from being over
Chairman of FBN Holdings, Femi Otedola, purchased an additional N17.2 billion worth of shares on Monday, June 24, to maintain his lead as the largest shareholder of the company.
With the purchase of 797,946,415 shares at N21.48 kobo, Otedola increased his stake in the financial services group to 11.63 per cent, a 2.22 per cent increase from an initial 9.41 per cent he had last week.
He confirmed the latest purchase in a corporate filling on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Monday, which has increased his direct and indirect shares in FBN Holdings to 4,178,409,365 from 2,517,282,140 shares.
Otedola’s new share acquisition comes four days after he gained lead of the HoldCo
TheRadar recalls that Otedola, who has been off the social scene, regained majority shareholder position in the holdings company on Thursday, June 20, following the acquisition of 863,180,810 shares worth N18.9 billion at the NGX.
The billionaire businessman had previously held a 7.0 per cent stake in the company and trailed behind Oba Otudeko’s Barbican Capital Limited, which held an 8.67 per cent stake.
Otedola, who is also a majority shareholder of Geregu Power Plc, had directly acquired 316,506,776 shares at a share price of N21.91 each, which amounted to N6.935 billion. His holding company, Calvados Global Services Limited equally acquired 546,674,034 shares at N21.97 each, which amounted to N12.01 billion, according to a corporate notice.
Otedola and Jim Ovia’s 11.29 percent shareholding of Zenith Bank are the largest individual shareholding for any publicly-listed bank.
The battle for the soul of FBN Holdings continues
Otedola and some other major stakeholders of the company, like Oba Otudeko and Tunde Hassan-Odukale, have locked horns since October 2021 in an epic battle for the largest majority shareholder position of FBN Holdings.
He had announced that he had gotten a 5.07 per cent of the company’s shares in October 2021. In December 2021, Otedola acquired an additional 2.5 per cent share of the group and brought his shares to 7.57 per cent from 5.07 per cent, displacing Tunde Hassan-Odukale whose interests stood at 4.40 per cent at the time.
FBN Holdings also appointed Otedola as the chairman of its board of directors in January this year. A month after the appointment, however, FBN Holdings named Oba Otudeko’s Barbican Capital Limited as its majority shareholder, making Otedola the second major shareholder at the time.
The latest acquisition gives him a wide and clear margin as the only shareholder in the holding company with a shareholding above 10 per cent, which amounts to a combined 4.178 billion shares of the company’s total 35.895 billion shares.
It is also an indication that the billionaire businessman has a grip on and control of the bank and may be on his way to further acquisitions as the bank is expected to open its right issue or public offer in a bid to meet the N500 billion capital threshold of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s bank recapitalisation programme.
Heritage Bank: What happens to depositors' funds when a bank's licence is revoked?
Meanwhile, TheRadar earlier reported that the licence of Heritage Bank had been revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
In the event of this, depositors are unsure of what happens to their money, and here is what happens to the money of people who operate accounts with a bank that is forced to shut down operations.
