Shares of FBN Holdings Plc (FirstHoldco) have surged by greater than 20% in simply two buying and selling periods, pushed by heightened investor hypothesis following an enormous off-market transaction involving over 10.4 billion shares.
The inventory, which closed at N29.30 on Monday, July 14, jumped to N32.20 on Wednesday and prolonged its rally to N35.40 in early morning buying and selling on Thursday, July 17.
This worth motion displays rising market curiosity in a big change within the firm’s possession construction.
On Wednesday, July 16, 2025, a serious negotiated deal was executed on the Nigerian Change (NGX), the place 10,433,909,058 items of FirstHoldco shares had been traded off-market at N31.00 per share throughout seventeen transactions.
The transaction, valued at roughly N323.33 billion, represents about 25% possession within the group, which at the moment has 41.87 billion excellent shares, making it one of many largest single-day block trades out there this 12 months.
Previous to the transaction, there have been three well-known main shareholders within the banking group: Oba Otudeko, Femi Otedola, and Tunde Hassan-Odukale.
A number of different shareholders additionally maintain sizeable, although not categorized as vital, stakes.
Underneath extant NGX guidelines, a big stake is outlined as a holding of 5% or extra of an organization’s excellent shares.
Though the negotiated commerce window on the NGX permits consumers and sellers with giant transactions to pre-arrange phrases, together with worth and switch of shares, outdoors the bizarre market’s worth discovery mechanism, such trades are nonetheless delivered to the alternate for formal execution and switch of possession.
Nevertheless, recent insider info out there to Nairametrics reveals that entities linked to Oba Otudeko and Tunde Hassan-Odukale bought the ten.433 billion FirstHoldco shares to a comparatively unknown firm — RC Funding Administration Restricted.
In keeping with sources conversant in the matter, the client, RC Funding, is linked to at least one Samuel Babatunde Sule. The corporate reportedly acquired roughly 7.787 billion shares from Barbican Capital and RAML, each entities related to Oba Otudeko.
As well as, RC Funding bought 2.647 billion shares from entities associated to the previous Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria, Tunde Hassan-Odukale. These entities embrace Hassan-Odukale himself, Leadway Holdings, Leadway Pensure PFA, Haskal Holdings, and Leadway/NNPC Employees Pension Funding.
The current developments in FirstHoldco sign a possible realignment of management inside Nigeria’s oldest banking group, and traders are responding accordingly.
