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Otedola buys N18.95bn shares to regain FBN’s highest shareholding position

NIGERIAN billionaire businessman and chairman of FBN Holdings Plc, Femi Otedola, has acquired a fresh 863,180,810 units of shares at the value of N18.95 billion to reclaim the highest shareholding in the company.

The FBN Holdings, the parent company of First Bank Nigeria Limited, disclosed this in a corporate filing to the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) and the investing public on Thursday, June 20.

In the disclosure signed by the Acting Secretary, Adewale Arogundade, the company stated that Otedola paid N6.93 billion to acquire 316,506,776 direct shares at the rate of N21.91 per share.

He further paid N12.01 billion to acquire 546,674,034 indirect shares at the rate of N21.97 per share through his company, Calvados Global Services Limited.

The fresh acquisition of 863,180,810 units has now increased Otedola’s shares (direct and indirect) in FBN Holdings to 3,380,462,950 units, putting his stake at 9.41 percent.

A check on FBN Holdings’ 2024 first quarter financial statements, indicates that Otedola’s stake stood at 2,517,282,140 units or 7.01‬ per cent of the bank’s 35,909,873,609.13 units of shares

Otedola is now the highest shareholder in FBN Holdings having overtaken Oba Otudeko’s Barbican Capital Limited company which has 3,110,400,619 direct shares or 8.67 percent stake.

The ICIR reported in October 2023 that Otudeko’s name was completely missing in FBN Holdings structure despite his acquisition of 4.77 billion unit shares which put his stake to 13.3 percent and the bank confirming the acquisition to the investing public.

At the time, the purchase elicited reactions as some shareholders believed Otudeko was staging a “come-back” to reclaim control of the bank holding company.



The Central Bank of Nigeria had in April 2021, removed Otudeko as FBN Holdings’ chairman and sacked the board that served under him over noncompliance with regulatory control.

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In February this year, The ICIR reported that FBN Holdings reinstated Barbican Capital Limited as having the highest equity stake in its shareholding structure amid the announcement of Femi Otedola as the bank’s chairman.




     

     

    Some stakeholders told The ICIR that it appeared CBN disapproved of Otudeko’s acquisition reason his stake was not stated in the FBN Holdings’ third-quarter 2023 financial report, which would have automatically placed him in the position to become the board’s chairman again.

    The high-wired boardroom politics that played out, however, saw Otedola appointed to FBN Holdings’ board and subsequently as the chairman.

    The appointment came two years after the investor became the firm’s single largest shareholder in December 2021, when he increased his stake to 7.57 per cent.

    A month after the appointment, FBN Holdings named Barbican Capital Limited as its majority shareholder, making Otedola the second major shareholder at the time.

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