How Otedola Regained Position as Biggest Shareholder in FBN Holdings

Femi Otedola, Nigerian billionaire businessman and chairman of FBN Holdings, has regained his position as the majority shareholder of First Bank, in major investment move.

According to corporate filings on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) on Thursday, Otedola now holds 9.41 percent of the bank’s shares.

This development occurred following his acquisition of shares valued at N18.9 billion.

The filings indicate that Otedola paid N21.91 per share, amounting to N6.935 billion for 316,506,776 shares.

Additionally, through his holding company, Calvados Global Services Limited, he purchased another 546,674,034 shares at N21.97 per share, totaling N12.01 billion.

With simple arithmetic calculation, this brings the number of newly acquired shares to a total of 863,180,810 cumulative shares.

As Femi Otedola increased his direct and indirect holding in FBN Holdings from 2,517,282,140 to 3,380,462,950 shares, making him the highest shareholder in the company, he surpassed Oba Otudeko’s Barbican Capital Limited, which holds 3,110,400,619 direct shares.

Prior to this recent development, FBN Holdings had in January appointed Otedola as the chairman of its board of directors. This appointment came two years after he became the firm’s single largest shareholder in December 2021, when he increased his stake to 7.57 percent.

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

With Otedola’s fresh acquisition, it seems the quest for equity dominance in FBN Holdings between him and Oba Otudeko may have come to an end, for the time being, which hopefully should be the bank in good stead to enjoy more operating liquidity.