Billionaire Femi Otedola spends another $14.9 million on First HoldCo as stake hits 27.5%

Femi Otedola has bought a further 147,737,699 shares in First HoldCo Plc, spending ₦20.68 billion and taking his holding in the banking group he chairs to roughly 27.5 percent.

The purchase was made on Aug. 14 at ₦140 a share through Calvados Global Services Limited, a company related to Otedola, according to a notification of insider dealing filed with the Nigerian Exchange on Monday and signed by group company secretary Abiola Baruwa. The transaction cost about $14.88 million at ₦1,390 to the dollar, according to Billionaires.Africa calculations.

The filing discloses the transaction alone and does not state a resulting position. Measured against his holding of 12,094,630,729 shares following the Aug. 7 purchase, it takes him to 12,242,368,428 shares, or 27.54 percent of the 44.45 billion shares in issue. The block bought last week represents 0.33 percent of the company on its own.

At the price he paid, the full holding is worth about ₦1.71 trillion, roughly $1.23 billion.

Otedola has been buying almost weekly since the start of the Nigerian summer. His position stood at 9,277,792,037 shares on June 30 and 10,177,494,288 by July 29. He acquired 1,779,094,976 shares on July 30 at between ₦124.90 and ₦125.00, reaching 11,956,589,264, then a further 138,041,465 shares on Aug. 7 at ₦131.20.

The prices have risen through the run, from ₦125 at the end of July to ₦131.20 a week later and ₦140 last Friday. First HoldCo shares gained 131.13 percent during July alone, closing the month at ₦129.55 against ₦56.05 at the end of June, and the company overtook Zenith Bank as the most valuable lender on the Nigerian Exchange.

Otedola, who holds the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger, chairs the group alongside group managing director Adebowale Oyedeji and directors Alimi Abdul-Razaq, Peter Aliogo, Kofo Dosekun, Abiodun Fatade and Olusegun Alebiosu.

He has assembled the position through several vehicles, including Calvados Global Services and Amperion Power Distribution Company, and took the chairmanship in January 2024 after a four-year contest for control of the group. That fight ended in July last year when Oba Otudeko and Tunde Hassan-Odukale sold their combined 10.43 billion shares, 25 percent of the company, to RC Investment Management at ₦31 apiece.

Nigerian banking stocks have been the strongest large sector on the exchange this year. The NGX Banking Index closed at 2,546.57 points on Aug. 3, up 68 percent for the year, and combined market capitalisation across the 12 listed lenders reached ₦27.4 trillion at the end of July.