First Bank Billionaires Battle For Control 

On Sunday, July 9, 2023 the board of First Bank Nigeria Holdings, held an emergency meeting to respond to last week’s acquisition of majority shares of the bank by Oba Otudeko, a former Chairman of the Bank.

Reports have circulated that Otudeko who was sacked in April 2021 by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, was planning to take over the commercial bank after acquiring over 4.7 billion shares in the bank.

But a top source who attended the meeting said the acquisition cannot alter the current configuration of the bank.

The acquisition has, however, not gone unnoticed by other billionaire shareholders of the bank, whom the magazine learned are already planning a counter move, even though business analysts have rightly described what is happening in the bank as healthy for the corporate environment.

“Even bossom  friends like Tony Elumelu and Femi Otedola ignored their relationship while trying to assert their control of one of Nigeria’s blue chip companies. Acquisition and takeovers are normal occurrence in business across the world,” Lade Jacobs, an expert in the sector said.

The billionaire owners of First Bank include Femi Otedola, Globacom chairman, Mike Adenuga, Hassan Odukale and Saheed Arisekola.

The current board was appointed in 2021 by the  CBN after the Otudeko-led board was dissolved.

In October 2021, few months  after Otudeko was ousted from the bank, Otedola made a bid to ‘grab’ the bank, after the former Diesel mogul, through his firm Calvados Global Services Limited purchased huge shares to become the single largest shareholder.

The development, analysts insist set Otedola against Odukale, the current Chairman of FBN Limited, who as one of the major shareholders was also gunning for the soul of the foremost commercial bank.

Otedola later denied he had such plans to become the Chairman of the bank.

Otudeko has now upstaged Otedola by acquiring 14 percent shareholding, leaving his major competitor with nine percent, while Odukale and Arisekola hold seven percent shareholding each.

“His (Otudeko) target is to return as the Chairman of the board of the bank. Considering his footprints in the bank, he will do everything to achieve his aim,” another source in the bank said on Monday.

The Honeywell boss made the acquisition known in a disclosure sent by the company to FBN Holdings before the close of business last week.

The corporate ‘disclosure’ signed by Ywande Giwa, the Head of Governance and Sustainability at Honeywell Group Limited, and addressed to the First Bank Holdings Corporate Secretary, said the firm has acquired over 4.7 million shares worth over N87 billion in the bank.

Acknowledging the letter, First Bank Acting Company Secretary, Adewale Arogundade, said: “This is to inform the public and our stakeholders that the Company received a notification dated July 7, 2023, from Honeywell Group Limited that its affiliate, Barbican Capital Limited has acquired an aggregate of 4,770,269,843 units of shares from the company’s issued share capital of 35,895,292,791, as at the above-referenced date. Based on the foregoing, the equity stake of Barbican Capital Limited in the Company is 13.3 per cent.”

 Otudeko was sacked from the bank in April 30, 2019 by the embattled CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele who queried his decision to remove, without regulatory approval, Kazeem Adeduntan, the Managing Director of FBN Ltd.

Apart from trying to retire Adeduntan inappropriately, the CBN also cited insider loan abuse as one of the reasons for sacking Otudeko.

The CBN stated the reasons for Otudeko’s sack “The insiders who took loans in the bank, with controlling influence on the board of directors, failed to adhere to the terms for the restructuring of their credit facilities which contributed to the poor financial state of the bank.

“The CBN’s recent target examination as at December 31, 2020, revealed that insider loans were materially non-compliant with restructuring terms (e.g. non perfection of lien on shares/collateral arrangements) for over 3 years despite several regulatory reminders.

“The bank has not also divested its non-permissible holdings in non-financial entities in line with regulatory directives,” CBN explained the financial mess FBN Holdings was in then.”

Following his sack, nothing much had been heard of Otudeko, who apparently disappeared from Nigeria’s high society, but his recent move, according to analysts,  is capable of resurrecting the old battle among the billionaires who will  do everything to control one of Nigeria’s biggest commercial banks.