Nigerian entrepreneur Nonso Okpala's stake in VFD Group climbs to $14.6 million

Editor's note: Billionaires.Africa will soon launch The Africa $10 Million Shareholdings Index (AMSI), which will rank and value the disclosed stakes that named individuals hold in companies with a primary listing on an African stock exchange. The index will combine each person's holdings across exchanges, include everyone whose disclosed holdings add up to at least $10 million, and update stock prices and valuations daily. Stock-market net worth reports such as this one, built on disclosed shareholdings and closing prices, are part of the work leading up to the launch. Tips on the beneficial owners of shareholding vehicles on African stock exchanges can be sent to tips@billionaires.africa.

Nigerian entrepreneur Nonso Okpala, the co-founder and group managing director of VFD Group Plc, controls a stake in the Lagos-listed investment company worth ₦19.5 billion ($14.6 million), after the shares gained 21% this year.

Okpala holds the stake through Osnon Capital Ltd., his family office, which owned 1,466,443,140 VFD shares at the end of 2025. That was 19.3% of the company at the time and made Osnon the largest shareholder, well ahead of Jotani Investments Ltd. with 7.9%, Bilinear Ltd. with 6.4% and co-founder Mobolaji Adewumi with 5.6%. At Friday's closing price of ₦13.30 on the Nigerian Exchange, the stake is worth ₦19.50 billion, or $14.65 million at an exchange rate of ₦1,331.69 to the dollar.

VFD ended 2025 at ₦11, when the same shares were worth ₦16.13 billion ($12.11 million). Since then the group has sold 5.07 billion new shares in a rights issue, lifting its share count to 12.67 billion and its market value to about ₦168.5 billion ($126.5 million). Osnon's entitlement in that offer came to 977.6 million new shares at ₦10 each. Its last disclosed holding equals 11.6% of the enlarged company.

Okpala also buys shares in his own name. On Aug. 11 he bought 539,615 VFD shares at an average price of ₦11.97, a purchase of about ₦6.46 million ($4,850).

Osnon has held close to a fifth of VFD for years. It owned 19.2% at the end of 2023, the year the company moved to the main board of the Nigerian Exchange, and its holding has grown since through two large bonus issues.

From KPMG to Heirs Holdings

Okpala was born on Dec. 12, 1978, in Uga, a town in Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria, and grew up in Benin City, where his family moved when he was a child. He attended Marist Brothers' Juniorate in Uturu and graduated from the University of Nigeria's Enugu campus in 2003 with a degree in marketing, finishing top of his class. He later qualified as a chartered accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.

He started his career in 2004 as an auditor at KPMG in Lagos, rising to senior auditor before leaving in 2008. After a short spell at United Bank for Africa, he joined BGL Plc, a Lagos investment banking group, as special assistant to an executive director and later worked on its corporate finance team.

In 2010 he became chief financial officer of Heirs Holdings, the family investment company of Nigerian banker Tony Elumelu, and stayed until late 2015. "At Heirs Holdings, I mastered the art of managing, controlling and running a company," he said in 2021.

Building VFD

VFD was incorporated on July 7, 2009, as ViadazFD Ltd. by a group of 35 young shareholders who put up about ₦2.5 million, or roughly $17,000 at the exchange rate of the time. It started out of a parking space in Lagos and began operations on Jan. 1, 2011. Adewumi, now managing director of Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc, and Azubike Emodi were among the founders. Okpala helped set it up while still working elsewhere and became its full-time chief executive after leaving Heirs.

The early years were rough. In December 2011, the company's only employee left with its loan and transaction records. "I seriously considered whether the stress of being an entrepreneur was worth it," Okpala said in 2023. Most of the founders stayed. "90% of the people who founded the company are still on the board," he said.

The business began in financial services, with a foreign-exchange and remittance company, Everdon Bureau de Change, VFD Microfinance Bank, Anchoria Asset Management and a private debt arm, VFD Bridge. It was renamed VFD Group Ltd. in February 2016 and became a public company in January 2019. Along the way it bought stakes in other companies and later sold them. VFD bought 30% of Germaine Auto Centre, a Toyota dealer, in 2016 and exited in July 2019. It built a 31% stake in NEM Insurance Plc and sold it in December 2018, alongside other investors who together offloaded about 30% of the Lagos insurer. Okpala spoke at the time of plans to set up a regional bank in southwestern Nigeria.

The group calls itself a proprietary investment company, which means it invests its own money rather than clients' funds. Today its subsidiaries work in real estate and hospitality, logistics and haulage, lending and technology services, with investments in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. Its holdings include Anchoria, Dynasty Real Estate, Herel Global and Bvndle, a loyalty rewards platform.

In March 2020 the microfinance bank launched V Bank, a digital banking app. VFD put a further ₦5 billion ($3.75 million) into the bank in February 2025, when it had more than 500,000 active users. "V Bank is not just a microfinance institution; it plays a crucial role in the digital financial ecosystem," Okpala said then.

The group's biggest single bet outside its own businesses has been Abbey Mortgage Bank, a Lagos-listed home lender. VFD paid ₦2.37 billion in February 2020 for 2.26 billion new Abbey shares at ₦1.05 each, about 35% of the enlarged bank. On Dec. 24, 2025, it sold 1.1 billion of those shares for ₦6.82 billion ($5.1 million), cutting its stake to 23% from 33.8%. Earlier that year it sold its 57.3% stake in a subsidiary, Atiat Ltd., for ₦7 billion ($5.3 million).

Stakes in Nigeria's stock exchange

VFD has also invested in the companies that run Nigeria's capital market. In February 2022 it disclosed that it owned 101.5 million shares, or 5.2%, of Nigerian Exchange Group Plc, the holding company of the Lagos bourse. "Our investment in the pioneer exchange company of Nigeria is a strategic play in our ecosystem build," Okpala said. Shareholders of the exchange group elected him a non-executive director in July 2023, and in April 2024 he joined the board of Central Securities Clearing System Plc, the country's securities depository, in which VFD also owns shares.

VFD's own shares traded on the NASD over-the-counter market before the company moved its 190 million shares to the main board of the Nigerian Exchange on Oct. 6, 2023, at ₦244.88 each. Okpala called the move a step "from a boutique investment firm to a publicly traded company." Days later VFD sought approval to list 63.3 million more shares from a rights offer at ₦197.33 apiece.

The two bonus issues followed. After the 2024 issue the price fell to ₦40.60 from ₦202.90 on June 19, 2024, as the share count rose fivefold to 1.27 billion. After the 2025 issue, which also came with a ₦2.50 dividend, the price was adjusted to ₦15.60 from ₦96, and the share count rose to 7.6 billion.

A rights issue and doubled profit

VFD announced the rights issue in October 2025. It offered two new shares for every three held, at ₦10 each, to raise ₦50.67 billion ($38 million). The offer opened on Oct. 20 and was extended into late December. The shares changed hands at ₦10.85 on Dec. 8, far below a 12-month high of ₦19. By late February the stock was up 7.7% for the year, while the Nigerian Exchange's All-Share Index had gained 23.9%.

The offer was fully subscribed, with existing shareholders accounting for 88% of the investors. The Securities and Exchange Commission cleared the allotment in March, and the shares closed at ₦12.50 on March 13. The money is going toward cutting debt, expanding into the United Kingdom and Southern Africa, recapitalising the group's capital market companies to meet new rules and putting more into its main subsidiaries. Folajimi Adeleye, the executive director for finance, said in March that "our current share price is a significant discount to the intrinsic value."

Okpala told shareholders at the annual meeting in Lagos on May 25 that the expansion would be slow and careful. "We would be watchful, very mindful and very deliberate in how we carry out those expansions," he said.

The results have improved. Group profit before tax rose 41.5% to ₦14.18 billion ($10.6 million) in 2025, and profit after tax was ₦9.72 billion ($7.3 million). Gross earnings reached ₦88.35 billion ($66.3 million). Shareholders approved a final dividend of 25 kobo a share.

In the first half of 2026, gross earnings rose 30.5% to ₦53.71 billion ($40.3 million), and profit after tax doubled to ₦10.06 billion ($7.6 million). Borrowings at the parent company fell 7% to ₦116.18 billion ($87.2 million). The board declared an interim dividend of 24 kobo a share, a payout of about ₦3.04 billion ($2.3 million).

"We told the market that the benefits of the rights issue would ultimately be reflected in earnings," Okpala said.

Outside VFD, Okpala funds the Chude and Ego Foundation, which he launched in September 2021 in honour of his parents, the late Nze Chude O. Okpala and Theresa Nwakego Okpala. Its first project is Osnon Academy, a free secondary boarding school for gifted children from poor families in his hometown of Uga, which VFD and several of its subsidiaries also support.