HH Capital, a private equity firm founded by billionaire investor, Tony Elumelu, has bought 70 million units of shares of United Bank for Africa where he is the chairman of the Board of Directors.
This was disclosed in a corporate filing on the Nigerian
Exchange Limited on Wednesday.
According to the details of the deal, HH Capital Limited
acquired 70,000,000 shares of UBA at N8 per unit on the floor of the NGX. The
deal is worth N560m.
In its 2022 audited financial statements, Elumelu holds
directly 194,669,555 units of UBA shares and 2,185,934,184 indirectly through
HH Capital Limited (140,843,816), Heirs Holdings Limited (1,814,003,900 ) and
Heirs Alliance Limited (231,086,468 units). With this latest acquisition,
Elumelu has increased his shareholding in the bank.
Elumelu has been in the news recently after billionaire
businessman, Femi Otedola, accused him of backstabbing him in some deals dating
back to 2008.
These accusations came to light following the rejection of
Otedola’s offer to buy indigenous conglomerate, Transnational Corporation Plc,
chaired by Elumelu for N250bn.
In a statement, Otedola said, “In 2005, while Tony was the
Managing Director of Standard Trust Bank, he approached me to get funds to
acquire UBA. I enthusiastically gave him $20m, which was N2bn at that time to
buy the necessary shares in UBA for the acquisition.
“After a short period of time, the share price moved up and
I decided it was a good moment to sell and get out of the bank. However, Tony
appealed to me to hold on to the shares as he was convinced that there were
future prospects – so I kept the shares.”
He added, “I became chairman of Transcorp Hotel in 2007 with
a shareholding of five per cent and unknowingly, Tony gradually started buying
shares quietly.
“By the following year in 2008, I went bankrupt in Nigeria.
Tony proceeded to take my shares in UBA to service the interest on my loans and
he also took over my shares in Africa Finance Corporation, where I was the
largest shareholder.
“Shortly after, Albert Okumagba informed me that an American
firm wanted to acquire my shares in Transcorp, which I then agreed to sell.
However, this supposed American firm turned out to be Tony Elumelu. The
revelation of this prompted me to resign as chairman of the hotel.”
He continued, “Years later in 2012, Tony said he wanted to
see me so we met in my office where I had previously had a meeting with foreign
investors who had not yet departed the premises. Curious to know, he asked what
sort of meeting I had had and I disclosed that I wanted to go into the power
business, specifically Ughelli Power Plant. Tony quietly went ahead to bid for
Ughelli and he outbid me by offering to buy the plant for $300m.”