For those who know Nigeria’s billionaire businessman Femi Otedola, he doesn’t like taking second seat when it comes to any investment of interest. He had tried it taking the front seat from the Odukale’s in First Bank, it didn’t work.
He took another shot at Transcorp for a front seat, but Tony Elumelu didn’t give up. The latest is report ( yet to be confirmed) that he is buying shares of Dangote Cement, triggering concerns whether he will this time be comfortable occupying second seat in the company owned by Aliko Dangote.
Aliko Dangote is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the Dangote Group, the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth at $16.1 billion in November 2023, making him the richest person in Africa, the world’s richest black person, and the world’s 107th richest person overall.
Otedola and his nominee, Calvados Global Services Limited, had on October 23, 2021, through APT Securities and Funds Limited, acquired a total of 1,818,551,625 units of shares from FBN Holdings issued share capital of 35,895,292,791, making his then equity stake in the financial holding company 5.07 percent.
Before he reduced his stake, Otedola and Hassan-Odukale were in contention over who was the single largest shareholder after the news about Otedola’s share acquisitions broke that October.
Otedola, a serial investor and chairman of Geregu Power Plc had also tried similar attempt at Transcorp Plc but his bid was rejected as Elumelu acquired fresh 9.7 billion shares of the company in separate deals, turning the tables to take the prime spot.
Otedola, renowned for his stock-picking boldness was one of the major drivers of the stock market’s bull run in 2023, after he shows interest in Transcorp.
The market saw a successful outing in 2023 which pushed return higher at 45.90percent.
Dangote Cement shares is up this year by 48 percent, a development linked to Otedola picking up of the stock. The stock has seen a remarkable gain, opening at N317 per share and currently trading at N470 per share.
His 2023 buying into Transcorp Group shares sparked a rally that pushed the stock into the top 5 performing stocks of year 2023. The stock rose from below N2 per share to N19 per share. When he acquired shares in FBN Holdings it was trading below N5 in 2022. The stock recently hit the trillion market cap and exchanges at around N30 per share.
At 22.90 percent, the stock market of Africa’s largest economy offers investors the best return globally.
The Nigerian stock market earlier this week overtook that of Argentina, a country it was trailing last week in terms of returns.
Performance boosted by new listings of capitalised stocks, policy reforms and lower interest rates.
The bulls have continued to dominate Nigeria stock market activity this year. The market has seen only one session of negative close this 2024. Week-to-date (WtD), the market has rallied by 10.66percent. Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All Share Index (ASI) rose by 2.04 percent on Thursday.
Following four consecutive sessions of positive closes seen this week, the market has further defied Monday’s inflation report as investors interest in equities pushed the benchmark performance index above 91,000 points at the close of trading on Thursday.
The (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation increased further from preceding trading day’s lows of 90,063.27 points and N49.280trillion respectively to
91,896.97 points and N50.289trillion.
