Nigerian politician Abdulaziz Yari's Geregu Power defaults on bond after $750 million takeover

Geregu Power Plc has defaulted on the ₦40.09 billion bond it issued four years ago, missing both a coupon payment and a scheduled principal repayment eight months after Senator Abdulaziz Yari's MA'AM Energy Limited bought control of the company in a $750 million debt-financed takeover.

FMDQ Securities Exchange, which lists the bond, has flagged the instrument as in credit default on its eighth coupon payment and fourth bullet principal repayment. Nairametrics reported the updated listing status on Sunday.

Geregu sold the bond on July 28, 2022 at a fixed rate of 14.50 percent under its ₦100 billion debt issuance programme, structuring it with semi-annual coupons and amortising principal repayments running to maturity on July 28, 2029. The company has missed at the midpoint of the bond's life rather than at the end of it. The issue was worth about $29.3 million at Friday's official rate of ₦1,368.22 to the dollar, according to Billionaires.Africa calculations.

The company blames a ₦61.47 billion turbine overhaul programme, roughly $44.9 million, which has pulled billable capacity off the grid while engineers carry out the work.

The collapse in revenue

Geregu booked ₦419.1 million in revenue between April and June, against ₦55.87 billion in the same quarter of 2025. Sales fell more than 99 percent.

The company had told the market to expect something else entirely. Weeks before it published the results, Geregu guided to revenue of ₦44.34 billion and profit after tax of about ₦8.17 billion for the quarter, promising a sharp recovery from a weak start to the year. It delivered roughly 0.9 percent of the revenue it forecast, according to Billionaires.Africa calculations.

Management missed its first-quarter guidance by a similar margin. In March it projected revenue of ₦57.11 billion and profit of ₦12.02 billion for the three months to March, ahead of the ₦31.75 billion and ₦10.43 billion it recorded a year earlier. Revenue came in at ₦18.24 billion and profit at ₦2.10 billion.

Across the half year, Geregu's revenue dropped 78.71 percent to ₦18.65 billion, about $13.6 million, from ₦87.63 billion. Profit after tax fell 88 percent to ₦2.54 billion from ₦20.27 billion.

The company points to parts of the balance sheet that held. Financial asset impairment reversals of ₦16.12 billion, about $11.8 million, cushioned the accounts, and total liabilities fell to ₦239.33 billion, roughly $174.9 million.

GCR Ratings has kept Geregu's national scale long-term issuer rating at A(NG) with a stable outlook, on the expectation that generation and revenue recover once the overhauls finish and full capacity returns to the grid. That rating now sits alongside a missed payment on a listed bond.

Yari's position

MA'AM Energy acquired 95 percent of Amperion Power Distribution Company on Dec. 29, 2025, taking ultimate beneficial ownership of 77 percent of Geregu's issued share capital, or 1,925,000,000 shares. A consortium of Nigerian banks led by Zenith Bank financed the $750 million transaction, and BlackBirch Capital advised on it.

Femi Otedola, who assembled the position through Amperion and Calvados Global Services and took the company public in October 2022, gave up control in the same deal. His daughter Olawunmi Otedola resigned as a non-executive director, and four independent directors left the board with her.

Corporate registry filings list four owners of MA'AM Energy, each holding 25 percent: Abdulkarim Tsafe, chief executive of Ajap Financial Services and a former Zamfara State official; Jari Jafar; Abdulaziz Ahmad; and Abdulaziz Yari, son of the senator. All four registered as persons with significant control on Oct. 17, 2025. Senator Yari, who represents Zamfara West and governed the state from 2011 to 2019, took the chairmanship and presided over his first annual general meeting on June 30.

The shares have fallen 27.67 percent since January, closing Friday at ₦825.70 against ₦1,141.50 at the start of the year. At that price the market values Geregu at about ₦2.06 trillion, roughly $1.51 billion, and MA'AM Energy's holding at around ₦1.59 trillion, about $1.16 billion, according to Billionaires.Africa calculations. Yari's vehicle still sits more than $400 million above the price it paid in December.

Geregu has also paid its new owners. The company declared a dividend of ₦9 a share for 2025, distributing ₦22.5 billion, of which MA'AM Energy's stake drew ₦17.33 billion, about $12.7 million.

Background

The reversal contrasts with 2025, when Geregu posted record full-year revenue of ₦184.9 billion, up close to 35 percent, on energy sales of ₦120.8 billion and capacity charges of ₦64.1 billion.

The stock shed 10 percent in a single week in July and ended the first half among the weaker performers on the Nigerian Exchange, while the All-Share Index returned close to 46 percent.

The federal government incorporated Geregu in November 2006 as one of the thermal generating companies carved out of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria, and the Ajaokuta plant entered service in February 2007. Amperion bought a 51 percent controlling stake for ₦20.5 billion in the November 2013 privatisation round. The plant carries installed capacity of 435MW and supplies roughly 10 percent of the electricity Nigeria generates.

Relief may come from the state. Geregu stands among the generating companies awaiting a share of ₦500 billion in power sector arrears, part of a ₦4 trillion obligation the federal government is settling through a sovereign-guaranteed bond programme issued by NBET Finance Company Plc.

Bondholders will now watch whether Geregu cures the default inside any applicable grace period and whether the company sets a firm date for returning full capacity to the grid.