Billionaire Femi Otedola gains $106 million in four days as First HoldCo hits record

First HoldCo shares touched an all-time high of ₦137.20 in midday trading on Monday, lifting the value of chairman Femi Otedola's holding to ₦1.64 trillion, about $1.18 billion.

He holds 11,956,589,264 shares, or 25.87% of the company. Four days ago he bought the most recent 1,779,094,976 of them at ₦124.9, a purchase that cost ₦222.21 billion and valued his total position at ₦1.4934 trillion.

The stock has added ₦12.30 a share since. On his holding that is a paper gain of ₦147.07 billion, roughly $106 million, in four trading days. None of it has been realised.

The rally has been running all year and has accelerated since the half-year results. Shares closed 2025 at ₦47.90. At ₦137.20 the stock is up 186% for the year, against 165% when it closed at ₦127 last Tuesday. It first passed Zenith Bank on July 20, at ₦105.50, to become Nigeria's most valuable lender, and has gained 30% since that session.

The bank now carries a market value of roughly ₦6.3 trillion, about $4.56 billion.

Two things follow for shareholders.

The first is income. The board committed on July 28 to distributing at least 60% of profit after tax every year, subject to regulatory approval. Applied to first-half profit of ₦526.13 billion, that implies around ₦315.68 billion available for distribution on six months alone. Otedola's 25.87% would entitle him to roughly ₦81.66 billion, about $58.8 million, by Billionaires.Africa's calculation.

Every other shareholder holds a claim on the remaining 74.13% of that pool, against a share price that has nearly tripled since January.

The second is what the rally does to Otedola's own position.

Nigerian takeover rules oblige an investor crossing 30% of a listed company to make a mandatory offer for the remainder, under the Investments and Securities Act 2025 and the Securities and Exchange Commission's Rules on Mergers, Takeovers and Acquisitions. On the current register that threshold sits near 13.88 billion shares.

He is roughly 1.93 billion shares short of it. Buying that many at ₦137.20 would cost about ₦264.4 billion, or $190 million. The same block would have cost ₦240.7 billion at the price he paid on July 30.

The rally he has spent the year funding has therefore made his remaining headroom about $17 million more expensive in four days.

Otedola has given no indication that he intends to cross the threshold, and has consistently described his buying as a long-term investment rather than a route to control. He has also said repeatedly that the money committed is his own rather than borrowed.

His accumulation has run for years. He held 6.68 billion shares, or 15.95%, at the end of June 2025. He reached 8.06 billion by March, 9.28 billion by June, and passed 10 billion in July through his vehicle Calvados Global Services.

The earnings behind the move were published on July 20. First HoldCo reported pre-tax profit of ₦653.54 billion for the six months to June 30, up 83.5% on the ₦356.15 billion recorded a year earlier. Profit after tax rose 81.57% to ₦526.13 billion. Second-quarter pre-tax profit reached ₦332.42 billion, up 95.92% year on year and ahead of the first quarter.

The group reported total assets of ₦30.6 trillion, customer deposits of ₦21.9 trillion, and non-interest income of ₦497.1 billion drawn from electronic banking, trade services, brokerage, asset management and investment banking.

Market capitalisation has risen faster than the share price this year, by roughly 187% against 186%, because the register expanded during the recapitalisation. Shareholders who did not take up new shares saw their percentage fall regardless of what the valuation did.

First HoldCo is the holding company for First Bank of Nigeria, founded in 1894 and the country's oldest financial institution. Otedola became chairman after a protracted contest for influence over the register.

The ₦137.20 level is an intraday high rather than a closing price, and the record stands only until the session ends.