Business

Herbert Wigwe increases stake in Access Holdings, invests N14.5bn

Published

1 year ago

June 29, 2023

THERE IS NO NEED TO FIGHT OVER HERBERT WIGWE'S WILL By JESUTEGA ONOKPASA I just heard that the parents of our brother, the late Herbert Wigwe, have gone to court to contest his will. Herbert Wigwe would naturally had envisaged that he would bury his parents and not the other way round. Unfortunately, our dearly departed brother died before his beloved parents. In that case, they are entitled to a share of his wealth, being the ones who gave birth to him and made him who he was by the most Divine Grace and Providence of Almighty God. Nothing is more disgusting than people fighting over the property of a diseased person - property they did not earn. We are Niger Deltans and we have a saying that where there is no greed, even the leg of an ant can be shared. The Wigwes are one family and Herbert left far more than enough to go around. I enjoin Herbert's children to embrace their grandparents for they are the ones most solidly on their side at this time. We have culture - we do not fight our parents, not to talk of our grandparents. We do not disgrace our parents, neither do we dishonour our grandparents. May the Good Lord Jesus bring healing, reconciliation and unity to the house of the Wigwes. May Herbert's adorable children be embraced by the Holy Spirit, Almighty God, The Giver of Life - they will live long and be truly blessed and fully alive. The untimely death that took their parents, sibling and family friend will never find them in Jesus Most Holy and Almighty Name. May the souls of the faithful departed, rest in the Most Holy Bosom of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. My dear Wigwes, you are one: please take this unnecessary case out of court and embrace yourselves as the children of God that you are. Onokpasa, a lawyer, writes from Abuja.

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Group Managing Director and co-founder of Access Holdings, Herbert Wigwe has increased his stake in the bank, investing an estimated N14.5 billion on additional shares of the bank since April 2023.

With the latest acquisition, he appears to be consolidating his position as the biggest shareholder of the bank, solidifying effective control.

Wigwe has been acquiring more shares of the bank since April when he purchased about 1.13 billion units. His stake is spread across several entities that hold direct shares in Access Holdings.

Just last week, his Tengen Holdings (Mauritius) Limited, a company related to Dr. Herbert Wigwe again acquired additional 50 million shares worth N762.5 million in the company.

The notice signed by Sunday Ekwochi, Company Secretary indicated that Tengen Holdings on June 26th, 2023, purchased 50,000,000 units of Access Holdings Plc at N15.25 per share valued at N762.5 million.

The acquisition of 50 million shares represents 0.14 per cent of the company’s total outstanding shares of the company. This takes the total shareholdings for his Tengen Holdings to 1.8 billion and Wigwe’s combined direct and indirect stake to 3.1 billion shares.

Tengen has been increasing its shareholdings since December doubling from about 432,577,819 units of shares as of December 31, 2022, to 1,819,750,593 units by our estimates between April and June 2023.

The total amount of shares bought since April 2023 is valued at about N14.2 5 billion

Wigwe also has an indirect interest in United Alliance Company of Nig Ltd and Trust and Capital Limited with shares of 537,734,219 and 584,056,979 respectively.

Consequently, Wigwe’s indirect holdings now stand at 2,941,541,791 units of shares from 1,554,369,017 as of December 31, 2022. His direct holdings remained at 201,231,713 units of shares.

According to its unaudited first quarter result, the group released recently at NGX Exchange, Access Holdings grew Interest income by 46.4 per cent to N254.22 billion in the first quarter of 2023 from N173.688 billion in the corresponding period of 2022.

Profits before tax also increased 28.4 per cent to N81,594 billion from N65,559 billion in the review period.  Its gross earning maintained its upswing as it increased to N424.917 billion in the review period, higher than the N295.736 billion recorded in the first quarter of March 2022.

Its profit after tax improved in the first quarter of 2023, to N71.636 billion, compared to the N57.825 billion it realized in the first quarter of 2022.

Also, Access Holdings total assets increased to N15.742 trillion as of the end of March 2023, up from N14.998 trillion recorded at the end of December 2022.

Access Holdings closed its last trading day (Tuesday, June 27, 2023) at N15.80 per share on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX), recording a 3.6 per cent gain over its previous closing price of N15.25.