Billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, has acquired additional shares in FBN Holdings valued at N183 million.

The fresh acquisition was disclosed in a corporate filing on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) on Wednesday.

The development comes two days after he bought 797,946,415 shares at N21.58k for N17.2 billion.

According to the NGX filing, Otedola bought 1,228,141 shares for N24.9 million at N20.30k on June 25.

Similarly, Otedola also acquired 7,965,198 shares of FBN Holdings at N19.90k at N158.5 million.

The deal was executed through his company — Calvados Global Services Limited — bringing the total value of shares bought on June 25 to N183.4 million.

This is the third time the mogul will acquire FBN Holdings shares in June.

On June 20, Otedola, who is also the chairman of FBN Holdings, bought shares valued at N18.9 billion.

Four days later, his shares increased to 4,178,409,365 after he bought 797,946,415 shares worth N17.2 billion.

In less than seven days, the billionaire has bought N36.2 billion worth of shares.

Otedola’s total shares (direct and indirect) in FBN Holdings have now moved from 4,178,409,365 to 4,187,602,704 shares.

Within six months of being appointed chairman of the holding company’s board of directors, Otedola has acquired more shares than Barbican Capital Limited, owned by Oba Otudeko, to be the largest shareholder in the company.

His appointment had come two years after the investor became the firm’s single largest shareholder in December 2021, when he increased his stake to 7.57 percent.

Nigerians have resorted to loans as one of their survival strategies, as a report by the Central Bank of Nigeria, said consumer credit jumped by 12 per cent to approximately ₦3.9bn in January 2024, riding on the back of majorly heightened inflation.

According to the apex bank’s latest monthly economic report, the total consumer credit outstanding increased to N3,823bn in January 2024.

The report further explained that a disaggregation of consumer credit revealed, that personal loans increased by 14.3 per cent to N3,028bn from N2,649bn in December 2023.

Retail loans rose by 4 per cent to N795bn, as personal loans accounted for 79 per cent of consumer credit, while retail loans accounted for 21 per cent.

Consumer credit, as a share of total credit from Online Data Capture Systems (ODCs), however, declined to about 7 per cent, from 8 per cent in the preceding month, the report added.

This is as the headline inflation rate as provided by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), hit 33.95 per cent in May, forcing the apex bank to hike the interest rate consecutively to 26.25 per cent.

The rising inflation has since seen Nigerians grappling with the effect of the worst economic crisis, as the cost of living escalates.

A study by SBM Intelligence found that 27 per cent of Nigerians across different income categories now resort to loan apps to keep up with their living expenses in the wake of record inflation.

The surge in demand for these loan apps indicates the severe impact of the unyielding inflationary pressures on the daily lives of Nigerians, especially those already grappling with limited financial resources.

Femi Otedola, billionaire businessman and chairman of FBN Holdings, has regained his position as the majority shareholder of First Bank.

According to corporate filings on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) on Thursday, Otedola now owns 9.41 percent shares in the bank.

This became possible after he purchased the group’s shares valued at N18.9 billion.

According to the corporate filings, the billionaire paid N21.91 per share or N6.935 billion for 316,506,776 shares.

He then bought an additional 546,674,034 shares through Calvados Global Services Limited, his holding company, for N21.97 per share — totalling N12.01 billion.

With this, the number of shares recently acquired totalled 863,180,810.

The fresh acquisition has increased Otedola’s shares (direct and indirect) in FBN Holdings to 3,380,462,950 — from 2,517,282,140 shares.

This means the businessman is now the highest shareholder in the company, overtaking Barbican Capital Limited, owned by Oba Otudeko, which has 3,110,400,619 direct shares.

In January, FBN Holdings appointed Otedola as the chairman of its board of directors.

The appointment came two years after the investor became the firm’s single largest shareholder in December 2021, when he increased his stake to 7.57 percent.

A month after the appointment, FBN Holdings named Barbican Capital Limited as its majority shareholder — making Otedola the second major shareholder at the time.