Otedola Increases Investment In FBN Holdings To N44bn, Owns 7.57% Stake

Billionaire businessman, Mr Femi Otedola has increased his investments in FBN Holdings to N44bn effectively making him the largest investor in the holding company of First Bank Plc.

The N44bn investment by Otedola gives him the power to own and control 7.57 per cent of the shareholding structure of the company.

The development was confirmed in a letter to the bank by Otedola dated December 9, 2021.

In the letter, Otedola said he acquired the additional shares through his proxies Calvados Global Services (1.989 billion shares), Primose Global Concept (170 million shares), Shetland Global (174.939 million shares, Wells Properties (120 million shares), and Impetus Synergy (53 million shares).

According to the letter, which was also copied the Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria Exchange Ltd, and the Central Bank, Otedola currently has 2.717 billion shares in FBN Holdings.

The letter reads, “I have recently acquired additional shares in FBN Holdings Plc (the Company) which has brought my total stake to 7.57 percent of the issued shares capital of the Company.”

In recent time, there had been battles for the control of the bank between Otedola and the FBN Holding’s Group Chairman, Mr Tunde Hassan-Odukale.

On October 25, First Bank notified the investment public that Otedola acquired a total of 1,818,551,625 units of the bank’s 35,895,292,791 share capital through two companies, APT Securities and Funds Limited.

FBN Holdings had said Otedola owned 5.07 per cent of the bank’s shares which no single individual owns.

But barely three days later, Hassan-Odukale who replaced the former MD, Ibukun Awosika, was announced as the largest shareholder.

According to FBN Holdings, Hassan-Odukale’s shareholding as of October stood at 5.36 per cent ahead of Otedola’s 5.07 per cent.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, had last month while speaking on the development said that First Bank of Nigeria is too big for any individual to claim ownership of the country’s oldest bank.

The apex bank boss further said that it would be a big blow on the Nigerian banking system if anything happens to the bank.

The CBN governor who described the bank as the pride of the country’s banking sector insisted that the oldest bank was too large for any single individual to own.

Emefiele said, “It is a strong aggressively domestically important bank in Nigeria. If anything happens to First Bank, it means something has happened to the Nigerian banking system and that is why we are taking our guidance about how to get the bank afloat very seriously.

“Six years ago, like I said, because of the aggressive build up of Non Performing Loans, the shares of First Bank fell to N2 per share. We took it on, everybody was running away from the shares of First Bank.

“Because we have cleaned the balance sheet now, the NPL has dropped aggressively, people are seeing that this money-making machine, First Bank is back again in the race for profitability and they are now competing for the shares of First Bank.

“Why should I quarrel that people are competing for the shares for First Bank which six years ago was N2 and they were running away from it? Today the shares of First Bank when I looked at it were N11.55 during the weekend. I am happy to see that they are competing for the shares.”