First HoldCo reveals buyer of recent share sales

First HoldCo Plc, the parent company of Nigeria’s oldest lender First Bank, has revealed the details of the buyer that purchased huge volumes of the shares of the financial services group through off-market dealings during the week.

“The sellers were Barbican Capital Limited & affiliates and Leadway Group & affiliates, and the buyer was RC Investment Management Limited,” First HoldCo said in a statement to NGX Regulation Limited on Friday, seen by PREMIUM TIMES.

Barbican Capital Limited is controlled by Oba Otudeko, a one-time chair of the board of directors of the holding company, while Tunde Hassan-Odukale, a former chairman of First Bank, is the chief executive officer of Leadway Assurance Company Limited.

Roughly one quarter of First HoldCo’s total issued shares, equivalent to 10.43 billion ordinary shares, were traded off the market on Wednesday in 17 negotiated deals at N31 per unit, a source told PREMIUM TIMES. That put the value of the transactions at N323.3 billion.

According to information gathered by PREMIUM TIMES, Barbican Capital sold 5.88 billion units, Peace Account GASL Nominee (associated with Mr Otudeko), sold 1.52 billion shares, RAML/MEF9 (associated with Mr Otudeko) sold 392.9 million shares, UBAPC/Leadway Pensure PFA Ltd FD1-T (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 6 million shares, while ZPC/Leadway/NNPC Staff Pen Inv A/C – TRA (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 24 million shares.

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Also, Mr Hassan-Odukale sold 30.7 million shares, UBAPC/Leadway Pensure PFA Ltd FundIII-T (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 39.9 million, Leadway Holdings Limited (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 1.03 billion shares, ZPC/Leadway Assur. Prem. Coll. & Inv. A/C-T (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 323.6 million, Leadway Assurance Co. Ltd (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 432.3 million, while UBAPC/Leadway Pensure PFA Ltd-T (associated with Mr Hassan-Odukale) sold 392.3 million shares.

“Immediately the information entered the market, it pushed the share price sharply upwards to N32.2. The deals happened towards the close of the market,” a trader with knowledge of the deals told PREMIUM TIMES in confidence.

In the same document, the financial institution refuted reports by ThisDay and Business Day newspapers as well as by Arise TV regarding the shares.

First HoldCo stated that its chairman, Femi Otedola, was not involved in the purchase of the shares, going further to say that neither did the Federal Government of Nigeria or any of its agencies acquire the shares.