Billionaires Tony Elumelu, Samuel Dossou-Aworet and Austin Avuru to pocket $30 million Seplat dividend

Three men will take just over $30 million out of Seplat Energy next month, and the size of each cheque runs in almost exactly the reverse order of how long they have held the shares.

Seplat declared an interim dividend of 5 US cents a share on Thursday alongside a special dividend of 7 cents, a combined 12 cents payable on or around August 28 to holders on the register at the close of business on August 13. The full distribution comes to roughly $72 million.

Tony Elumelu's vehicles take the largest share. Heirs Energies holds 86,639,377 ordinary shares and Heirs Holdings a further 33,760,623, a combined 120,400,000 that produces $14,448,000, split $10.4 million and $4.1 million between the two before withholding tax.

Petrolin Group, controlled by the Beninese oil magnate Samuel Dossou-Aworet, holds 81,015,319 shares and collects $9,721,838.

Austin Avuru, who co-founded the company in 2009 with Ambrosie Orjiako and ran it for its first eleven years, holds 50,019,178 shares. His payment comes to $6,002,301.

The man who built Seplat will receive less than half what the man who bought into it eight months ago receives.

Heirs completed its purchase on December 30, acquiring Maurel & Prom's entire holding at £3.05 a share for just under $500 million, financed by Afreximbank and the Africa Finance Corporation. The French group had been a shareholder for more than a decade and exited in full, ending a founding relationship.

The timing has proved fortunate. Seplat became the first company in the Nigerian Exchange's 65-year history to trade above ₦10,000 a share on April 14, by which point the stake had appreciated beyond $800 million, a paper gain of roughly $300 million inside four months. Shares closed at ₦11,363 on June 9. This single distribution returns close to 3% of what Heirs paid.

Dossou-Aworet has held his position considerably longer. He built Petrolin from oil trading into a group spanning exploration, production, refining and logistics across West Africa, operating from Geneva, and his Seplat holding has ridden the company from a 2009 startup through its 2014 dual listing in Lagos and London to its current position as Nigeria's largest listed energy company.

Avuru's stake has been through the most changes. He converted his direct holdings into vehicle-held positions across a series of transfers beginning in 2019, retired as chief executive in 2020 and left the board in 2022. His holding was worth about $202 million last October. He spent twelve years at NNPC as a well site geologist, production seismologist and reservoir engineer before founding the company that has now made three men rich in different decades.

The payment lands during an unusually busy handover. Roger Brown retires as chief executive today after thirteen years, having joined as chief financial officer in 2013. Effiong Okon takes over tomorrow, having run the ANOH gas processing joint venture that delivered first gas in January. Udoma Udo Udoma retires as chairman on December 31, and Elumelu succeeds him on January 1.

So the register closes and the money moves in Okon's first month, under a chairman who has not yet taken the chair.

One caution on the arithmetic. The special dividend is larger than the ordinary interim, which usually signals a one-off distribution of surplus rather than a new run rate, so the 12 cents should not be annualised.

The cash behind it comes from a considerably larger business than the one Avuru left. Seplat completed its $800 million acquisition of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited in 2024, roughly doubling production, and holds proved and probable reserves above one billion barrels of oil equivalent across the Niger Delta.

The dividend will be paid in naira and dollars, with the exchange rate set by reference to rates applying on August 12 and communicated the following day. Shareholders on the Nigerian Exchange without a valid Certificate of Capital Importation receive naira by default. Those holding through depositary interests in London receive dollars.