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A son of Nigerian tycoon Bola Shagaya co-owned a trading company with Emre Tezmen, one of the Turkish financiers jailed in a probe into investment funds that held an estimated $20 billion in assets.
Hakeem Shagaya and Tezmen, chairman of Tera Yatirim Holding, each held 50% of Savana Foreign Trade Consultancy Inc., a company set up in Turkey in 2019 to trade with Nigeria, according to Nordic Monitor, a Stockholm-based investigative website. Savana appears on a list of assets seized as part of the investigation, the site reported on Oct. 9, citing records published by Turkish journalist Bahadir Ozgur.
Nordic Monitor said no public evidence links Shagaya, or any of his businesses, to the alleged market manipulation under investigation. It also said it remains unclear how the two men came to be partners or what Savana did. Tezmen denies wrongdoing.
The report does not link Bola Shagaya, whose interests span oil and gas, property and banking, to Savana, Tera or the investigation.
A Nigerian paper trail
The report traces several connections between Tezmen and Nigeria.
Tezmen reportedly holds 51% of Para Haraket Nig. Ltd., a company registered in Nigeria. Its registered address matches the address listed for Shagaya in Savana's records, according to Nordic Monitor, which cautioned that the overlap does not prove the companies worked together or traded with each other.
Hakeem Shagaya also chairs Karmod Nigeria Ltd., which is linked to Karmod Prefabricated Technologies, a Turkish maker of prefabricated buildings that says it has operated in Nigeria since 2014. He attended the opening of a Karmod facility in Abuja in 2019.
He chairs Asolar Systems Nigeria, an off-grid solar company he set up in 2016. In 2021, Nigerian news site TheCable reported that the Niger Delta Power Holding Co., a government-owned power company, had agreed to guarantee a 7 billion naira bank loan for Asolar. The power company said at the time that it had followed due process.
Shagaya, who holds a master's degree from the University of Sheffield, served as a non-executive director of Unity Bank from 2014 to 2019 and has sat on the board of Caverton Helicopters since 2017.
Turkey's fund crisis
The investigation has become one of the biggest financial scandals in Turkey's recent history.
It erupted in mid-September, when several investment funds failed to meet redemption requests. On Sept. 17, Turkey's Capital Markets Board ordered 131 funds run by seven portfolio management companies into liquidation. The funds had 455,758 investors, according to the board. Estimates of their combined assets range from about $16 billion to more than $20 billion.
Prosecutors are examining whether fund managers pushed up the prices of thinly traded shares. The Financial Times has reported that the allegations include aggravated fraud and membership of a criminal organization.
On Sept. 23, a Turkish court ordered Tezmen and four others arrested, including Tera Yatirim board member Emre Alkin and Pusula Holding Chairman Serdar Turhan. By Oct. 6, 85 people were in pre-trial detention. None has been convicted.
The probe has also reached Turkey's ruling party. Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, a former deputy chair of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, resigned in late September after opposition lawmakers accused her of trading profitably before the collapse. Prosecutors said on Oct. 6 that she and her husband had applied to a voluntary repayment scheme run by the regulator. Taking part in the scheme is not an admission of insider trading, and no evidence has been made public that she traded on inside information.
The Shagaya fortune
Bola Shagaya is one of Nigeria's best-known businesswomen. She built her first fortune distributing photographic products for Konica across Nigeria before expanding into oil and gas, real estate and banking through Bolmus Group, the family's holding company.
Hakeem, one of her six children, worked as general manager of Bolmus Group in 2006 before setting up his own businesses.
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