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When Tony Elumelu's Heirs Energies paid $496 million for a 20% stake in Seplat Energy on the last day of 2025, some analysts questioned the timing. Three and a half months later, that bet looks inspired.
Seplat closed at N10,450 on April 14, becoming the first stock in the history of the Nigerian Exchange to breach the N10,000 mark, after surging 9.42% in a single session. The rally — fuelled by Nigeria's reclassification by FTSE Russell from "unclassified" to Frontier Market status — has pushed Seplat's year-to-date gain to nearly 80% and handed its biggest shareholders paper gains that run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Elumelu's 120.4 million shares, acquired at 305 pence each from French firm Etablissements Maurel & Prom, are now valued at approximately N1.258 trillion ($873.6 million) — a paper gain of roughly $378 million since December 31. The man who built his fortune in banking, chairs United Bank for Africa and Transcorp Group, and has spent the better part of a decade pushing his Africapitalism thesis through energy investments, has seen Seplat alone deliver returns that few fund managers would match in a full year. The deal was financed in part through a $750 million facility from the African Export-Import Bank. When Elumelu announced the acquisition, he said it reflected "our strong belief in Africa's ability to own, develop, and responsibly manage its strategic resources." The numbers are making that argument for him.
The gains flow through to every major shareholder. Samuel Dossou-Aworet, the Gabonese oil engineer who founded Petrolin Group in London in 1992 and has held approximately 13.87% of Seplat — 81 million shares — since the company's early years, is sitting on a stake now worth approximately N846.6 billion ($587.8 million). Born in Porto-Novo, Benin in 1944, Dossou-Aworet spent his early career as Gabon's Director General of Hydrocarbons before building Petrolin into a pan-African energy conglomerate headquartered in Geneva. His Seplat holding alone would make him one of the wealthiest investors on the Nigerian Exchange. A recent analysis by Shore.Africa estimated the combined value of his positions in Seplat, Aradel Holdings and Tullow Oil at roughly $907 million as of early April 2026, a figure that now looks conservative given Seplat's latest move.
Seplat's Nigerian co-founders are also counting gains. Austin Avuru, who merged his Platform Petroleum with Ambrosie Bryant Orjiako's Shebah Exploration and Production Company to create Seplat in 2009 and served as its first chief executive, holds approximately 8.5% of the company through his family vehicle AAH Holdings — around 50 million shares now worth approximately N522.7 billion ($363 million). Orjiako, the orthopedic surgeon turned energy entrepreneur who served as Seplat's founding chairman, holds a 6.43% stake of approximately 37.8 million shares valued at approximately N395.4 billion ($274.6 million). Together the 4 major shareholders — Elumelu, Dossou-Aworet, Avuru and Orjiako — hold Seplat positions with a combined value of approximately $2.1 billion.
What moved the stock
The immediate trigger was FTSE Russell's April 7 decision to reclassify Nigeria from "unclassified" to Frontier Market status, effective September 2026. The upgrade is expected to draw between $840 million and $1.04 billion in foreign portfolio inflows into Nigerian equities, according to Cordros Research, with liquidity concentrating in large-cap stocks with strong governance and earnings visibility. Seplat — dual-listed on the NGX and London Stock Exchange since 2014, the first Nigerian corporate to achieve that distinction — sits at the top of that shortlist. The stock began moving on the FTSE announcement, jumping from N9,099.90 to N9,550 before the April 14 session pushed it through the historic N10,000 barrier.
The rally has also been underpinned by the strongest set of financial results in Seplat's history. For the full year 2025, the company reported revenue of $2.73 billion, up 144% from the prior year, driven by the first full-year contribution from its offshore assets following the December 2024 completion of its $1.28 billion acquisition of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited from ExxonMobil. Profit before tax rose 86.7% to $497.8 million and gross profit surged 156.4%. The company raised its total dividend 52% year-on-year to 25 cents per share, supported by a 25% reduction in net debt to $673.3 million. That acquisition, which transferred 4 shallow-water oil mining leases, the Qua Iboe export terminal and a majority stake in the Bonny River NGL recovery plant and is now integrated into Seplat as SEPNU, transformed the company from a predominantly onshore producer into a diversified upstream operator across 11 oil blocks and 3 export terminals.
For 2026, Seplat has set production guidance of 135,000–155,000 boepd and is planning to invest between $2.5 billion and $3 billion in Nigeria over the next 5 years, financed entirely from operating cash flows. CEO Roger Brown, who joined as CFO in 2013 and took the top role in August 2020, called the ExxonMobil acquisition "a truly transformational step" that made Seplat "a larger, stronger and more diversified company." His own 0.71% stake in the company is not a bad position to be in either.
