Oba Otudeko, the chairman of Nigerian conglomerate Honeywell Group, became the largest buyer of the 4.7 billion shares of First Bank of Nigeria Holdings on Thursday.
The shares which Otudeko bought for N87.8 billion at N19 per unit is the largest volume of First bank shares traded in a single day since 2012, when the stock exchange started publishing data. It also translates to 13 percent of the bank’s outstanding market value.
“Otudeko is flush with cash from the sale of Honeywell and is buying back the bank’s shares through (entities linked to him),” a source familiar with the matter said.
Flour Mills, Nigeria’s biggest miller by market value, snapped up Otudeko’s Honeywell Flour Mills Plc last year in a deal worth N82 billion.
Another reliable source who pleaded anonymity suggests this may be connected to the pending Ecobank appeal at the Supreme Court over the implementation of liquidation proceedings against Honeywell Plc, of which Oba Otudeko was the majority owner.
Honeywell has since been acquired by Flour Mills Plc in a deal announced in 2022.
Ecobank had warned Flour Mills to steer clear , but the deal went ahead.
Otudeko held 1.49 percent of First Bank shares in 2021.
