Amid lingering battle for the soul of FBN Holdings Plc, billionaire businessman and chairman of Geregu Power Plant, Femi Otedola, has acquired 110 million units of the bank’s shares worth N2 billion in a fresh deal that intensifies the supremacy battle at Nigeria’s oldest financial services institution.The units represent 0.3 per cent of the bank’s entire shares of 35,895,292,792.
The deal came after Otedola had offloaded about 834 million shares of FBN Holdings valued at about N9.28 billion, an acquisition that made him the largest single shareholder of the bank as of June, 2023.
The sale came after a protracted boardroom tussle over who owns the largest shares of the company. The confusion compelled the Nigerian Exchange to wade in and clarify issues regarding ownership. The audited accounts of the banks within the period placed the billionaire at 7.57 per cent ownership.
THEWILL had reported last month that the chairman, Honeywell Group, Oba Otudeko, consolidated his shareholding as the largest shareholder with the acquisition of 4,770,269,843 units of shares through Barbican Capital Limited, an affiliate of Honeywell Group Limited, representing 13.3 per cent of its 35,895,292,791 outstanding shares of FBN Holdings.
This newspaper had reported that FBN Holdings Plc said it did not receive a court order stopping it from holding the Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for August 15, 2023, emphasizing that the AGM would hold as scheduled. This followed reports that a section of the shareholders had secured a court order stopping the planned AGM on August 15.
The company disclosed this via an official statement signed by the Company Secretary, Adewale Arogundade, which was sent to Nigeria Exchange Limited.
Part of the statement read:
“The attention of FBN Holdings Plc (the Company) has been drawn to recent media reports purporting that the Company has received a Court Order stopping it from holding the Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for August 15, 2023.
“We confirm that this assertion is a false narrative as the Company has, as at the date hereof, not been served with any court order to stop the forthcoming AGM.
“Suffice to mention that the AGM is a statutory meeting of Shareholders that must be held in with the law, further to which the Company will notify the regulators and the public as appropriate if there is any lawful order to restrain the Company from conducting same.
“We hereby assure our esteemed Shareholders that the AGM shall hold on August 15, 2023, and we look forward to their attendance and active participation at the meeting.”
The company noted that if there was any restraining order to stop the AGM from holding, that they would have informed regulators and the investing public. They assured Shareholders that the AGM would hold on August 15, 2023.
THEWILL had also reported that some minority shareholders of FBN Holdings Plc had on Monday, August 7th protested at the Lagos Headquarters of the group against a court order suspending the 11th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the financial institution..
Chairman of Trusted Shareholders Association of Nigeria who carried out the protest, Alhaji Mukhtar Mukhtar. told THEWILL that the shareholders were not happy that some individuals were trng to hold the financial institution to ransom.
Mukhtar said in a telephone chat that his group embarked on the protest to express their displeasure over an attempt by “some interests” to prevent the financial institution from holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for August 15, 202
“We protested against those who do not want First Bank to progress; those who do not want the AGM to hold and consider certain crucial resolutions because of their own personal interest
“How can a shareholder who claims to have the interest of the bank at heart think that if an AGM is held to consider crucial issues such as raising new capital or increasing the share capital of the bank and appoint new directors would not be in the interest of the bank?
“Except those with ulterior motives and who believe that their personal interests would be endangered, how would a company be negatively impacted by having new capital injected into it to boost its activities?”, Mukhtar queried.
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