The Chairman of United Bank for Africa and billionaire investor Tony Elumelu increased his shareholdings in UBA by 63% according to information contained in its June 2015 half year audited reports. Mr Elumelu through its Hiers Holdings vehicle owned about 116, 067, 153 ordinary shares at the end of December 2014. However, its 2015 H1 report shows the shareholdings is now 189,851,584 ordinary shares representing a 63% pop.
His current holdings put him now at 5.2% of the total outstanding shares of the company (36.2billion shares) making him the largest single significant shareholder. In fact, if you add his indirect ownership of 1.4billion ordinary shares, the banking mogul now owns about 2,072,876,000 ordinary shares or 6.4% of the bank. Stanbic Nominees and UBA Staff Shares Investment Trust scheme come the closest with about 5% each.
Recall UBA had a rights issue earlier in the year where it offered 1 for every 10 shares adding about 3.29billion shares to its shareholdings. We believe this rights issue was the opportunity Mr Elumelu needed to increase his shareholdings in the bank. The rights issue which it said was fully subscribed is believed to have been under subscribed by most retail investors leaving more high net worth shareholders with the chance to increase their stake and dilute retail investors.