Nigerian billionaire TY Danjuma's British family office made £308,000 and shut its London hotel

TY Danjuma's British family office made a profit of £308,000 in the year to June 30, 2025, recovering from a loss of £1.85 million, and closed the hotel that Bloomberg once used to illustrate his fortune.

Bloomberg profiled the Kings Arms in June 2019, a 14-room hotel south of London that the family had bought and refurbished, with rooms priced around £250 a night. It valued Danjuma at $1.2 billion on its Billionaires Index, a figure it has not updated since, and described his family office as managing part of that wealth through low-key holdings of exactly that kind. Hannatu Gentles, his second daughter, confirmed the purchase in an interview at the time.

The hotel ceased trading on May 31, 2025 and remains closed.

Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma, 88, is a retired Nigerian lieutenant general who served as Chief of Army Staff and later as Minister of Defence. He left the army in 1979 and paid $25 million in 1998 for the oil exploration licence, awarded under Sani Abacha's military government, that made him a billionaire.

What the office actually holds

TY Danjuma Family Office Limited is registered in England and Wales under number 06934623 and operates from Two Furlongs in Esher, Surrey. It was incorporated on June 15, 2009 as Takoradi Family Office Limited and renamed five months later.

It held £83.5 million of assets at June 30, 2025, about $114.6 million at the 1.3726 spot rate the accounts record for that date, down from £85.3 million a year earlier. Net equity rose slightly to £64.3 million. Every figure in the accounts dates from that day and the position will have moved since.

Property is the largest holding. The group owns 18 commercial and 53 residential properties valued at £41.5 million against a historical cost of £39 million, split between £16 million of commercial and £29.1 million of residential. Mortimers valued the British assets and KL Appraisal Services the American ones, and the group holds its United States property through a subsidiary called TYD Alpine Inc, incorporated in 2012.

Financial investments came to £30.2 million. Of that, £21.3 million sits in the TY Global Fund, a Singapore unit trust whose units are held by family trusts and other entities under common ownership, and £8.9 million in private equity held through TY Ventures.

The office had £4.6 million in cash and £11.4 million of bank debt secured on the property, borrowed from Standard Chartered in London and First Bank of Nigeria's UK arm at rates between 4.5 and 7.97 percent. The largest facility, £10.4 million from Standard Chartered, matured on Feb. 24, 2026, which is why current liabilities nearly doubled to £18.2 million at the year end. Whether it was refinanced will be visible only in the next filing, which is not yet due.

How it got back to profit

The company does not make money from trading. Revenue was £3.15 million, comprising £2.31 million of property income and £842,000 in advisory fees, against administrative expenses of £3.9 million.

Revaluation closed the gap. A £1.79 million uplift on investment property values and a £3.63 million gain on financial assets produced an operating profit of £2.69 million, partly offset by a £1.99 million foreign exchange loss and £858,000 of finance costs.

Staff costs took £2.26 million across twelve employees. The highest paid director received £634,982, about $871,000, plus £42,930 in benefits and pension contributions. The parent company, as distinct from the group, lost £2.69 million and carries accumulated trading losses of £10.97 million.

Danjuma is a creditor of his own family office. He made an interest-free loan in 2012, repayable on demand, and £5.2 million remained outstanding. Control rests with TY Group Investments Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company owned by second-generation family members.

The hotel that lost money for six years

TY Hospitality Limited ran the Kings Arms from July 1, 2019 until it closed. It lost £526,000 in its final year on revenue of £575,000, and £559,000 the year before that.

The directors closed it because they expected the losses to continue. The property is held for sale at £2.45 million, being an independent valuation of £2.5 million less £50,250 in estimated selling costs, and the sale was expected to complete within twelve months of the year end.

The management arrangement involved the family office's own chief executive. Mosaic Hotels Ltd operated the hotel under a contract signed on June 30, 2019, collecting revenue and handling expenses while TY Hospitality funded the running costs and carried the trading risk. Mosaic was run by an unrelated third party until Dec. 31, 2022, when Simon Foster, who signed these accounts as chief executive of the family office, became its sole shareholder and director. The accounts disclose the arrangement as a related party transaction.

The private equity nobody sees

The office holds three positions that connect directly to the second generation.

TY Ventures owns 29.3 percent of Danjuma Collection Ltd, valued at £2.1 million, with board representation. Its other shareholders include a second-generation family member and Othello Holdings Ltd, a trust established for their benefit.

It holds 30 percent of Starchild Pictures Limited, an English company controlled by M. Gentles, the spouse of a second-generation family member. That stake was carried at £300,000 in 2022 and written down to £150,000 the following year, where it has stayed.

It also holds 11.8 percent of Mai Shayi Coffee Roasters Limited, a Lagos company in which a second-generation family member invests directly, and lent it £82,000 in 2023 at 5 percent over seven years. A further £1.75 million is lent to Ottis Group Holdings Ltd, an investment vehicle owned by a trust set up for the second generation.

Where the fortune actually sits

Everything Danjuma is known for lies outside the British structure.

South Atlantic Petroleum, founded in 1995 and known as SAPETRO, is the largest piece. It holds a stake in Oil Prospecting Licence 246, the deep offshore block that produced the Akpo condensate field and the Egina discovery, with further assets in Benin, the Central African Republic and Madagascar. It runs from Lagos, recently added a logistics hub at Alaro City in the Lekki Free Zone, and donated ₦1 billion to the Lagos State Security Trust Fund in March.

Shipping came first. He founded Nigeria American Line in 1979, the year he left the army, and added COMET Shipping Agencies Nigeria in 1984. With seven sister companies they form the NAL-Comet Group, which employs more than 2,000 people in Nigeria and has been described as the largest independent port operator in Africa.

The Nigerian hotels are held separately again. The Wheatbaker, a luxury boutique hotel at 4 Lawrence Road in Ikoyi, Lagos, sits under Wheatbaker Investment and Properties and is operated by Legacy Hotels and Resorts. The family holds a board position at the Novotel in Port Harcourt.

The wider portfolio includes Unitrust Insurance Company, CDK Integrated Industries, Industrial and Medical Gases Nigeria Plc, the fertiliser producer Notore Chemical Industries, Dominion Rice and Integrated Farms, the property companies Beverly Development and Realties and Central Realities, Apave Nigeria, Capital Club West Africa, Dangil Holdings, Japaul Gold and Ventures, and Nile Exploration and Development. TY Holdings Limited sits above part of it.

Bloomberg reported he owns more than 30 properties across at least three continents. Forbes ranked him 30th in Africa at $750 million in 2015 and dropped him from its list in 2016 as oil prices fell.

Who runs what

Daisy Danjuma, his wife, has served as executive vice chair and chairperson of SAPETRO. Gloria Danjuma chairs NAL-Comet and Unitrust Insurance, has been an executive director of the shipping group since 2004, and sits on the boards of the family office, the Novotel in Port Harcourt and the TY Danjuma Foundation.

Ishaya Danjuma holds the widest board portfolio, spanning SAPETRO, Wheatbaker Investment and Properties, Notore, Unitrust, NAL-Comet, TY Holdings, Dominion Rice, Apave, Capital Club West Africa, Industrial and Medical Gases, Beverly Development and Dangil Holdings. He is married to Agbani Darego, the former Miss World.

Theo Danjuma sits on the boards of SAPETRO, CDK Integrated Industries and the foundation, and is a director of the British family office. Hannatu Gentles oversees the family office operation. Musa Danjuma, the general's younger brother, once ran NAL-Comet.

The two structures are connected by advice rather than ownership. The British office earned £604,000 sub-advising the TY Global Fund and £238,000 advising other entities under family ownership. The previous year's accounts itemised £120,000 of that for SAPETRO and £80,000 from TY Holdings. The 2025 accounts aggregate them, a change the directors described as streamlining disclosure.