Femi Otedola, the chairman of First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Holdings, has increased his stake in the company to 13.15 percent by purchasing 534,094,407 shares at the cost of N16.02 billion between September 23 and 25. The total value of his shares is N136.9 billion as of Wednesday.
This development also widens the gap between Otedola and Barbican Capital Limited, FBN Holdings’ second majority investor with an 8.67 percent stake.
In a lawsuit against FBN Holdings, Barbican Capital claimed to have acquired about 5,386,397,202 units of shares, representing 15.1 percent of FBN Holdings, over the years and at different times. This claim is disputed by FBN Holdings, which stated that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was only able to verify 3,110,400.619 units of shares out of the 4,770,269,843 shares Barbican Capital claimed it acquired.
FBN Holdings attributed CBN’s inability to verify all the shares to insufficient documents, as Barbican Capital allegedly refused to submit the requested documents for verification.
According to FBN Holdings, CBN guidelines mandate financial holding companies to seek approval before the purchase of a shareholding of 5 percent and above, or if the share units are purchased on the secondary market.
Otedola became the largest shareholder in FBN Holdings in June, a year after he lost the position to Barbican Capital.