Billionaire’s watch is a weekly column where we look at happenings around billionaire investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)
Last week’s release of H1 2018 results by Access Bank Plc and UBA Plc completes the results by the FUGAZ Banks. (FUGAZ stands for FBN Holdings, UBA Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank, Access Bank and Zenith Bank).
These banks have a tradition of paying interim dividends, and for retail investors, this is a period they look forward to.
Here is a rundown of the amount earned by each billionaire:
Jim Ovia
Jim Ovia’s direct holdings in the bank comprise 2,946,199,395 shares. His dividends from his direct holdings thus amount to N883,859,818.
The billionaire also holds 1,513,137,010 shares through the following entities: Institutional investors Limited, Lurot Burca Limited, Jovis Nigeria Limited, Veritas Registrars Limited, Zenith General Insurance. Dividends from his indirect holdings thus amount to N453,941,103.
In total, he will earn N1,337,800,921 from interim dividends. Year on year, his earnings increased by N222,966,820. The bank upped its payout from N0.25 to N0.30.
Tony Elumelu
Tony Elumelu has a direct holding of 189,851,584 shares in UBA Plc and indirect shareholding amounting to 2,045,647,761 shares through HH Capital, Heirs Holdings and Heirs Alliance.
UBA declared an interim dividend of N0.20 per share. Dividends from his direct holdings amount to N37,970,316. Earnings from his indirect holdings amount to N409,129,552.
In total, he will earn N447,099,868 as dividends.
Compared to the prior year, this amounts to a decline of N7,475,331 as he earned N454,575,199 as interim dividends.
The drop in earnings is due to a sale of a small fraction of his holdings sometime this year. Indirect holdings dropped from 2,083,024,416 as at December 2017 to 2,045,647,761 as at June 30 2018.
Herbert Wigwe
Access Bank Plc will be paying an interim dividend of N0.25 per share for the half year ended June 2018. Wigwe has a direct holding of 206,231,713 and indirect holding of 2,480,582,395 shares through United Alliance Company Limited and Trust and Capital Limited. His holdings are unchanged from the year ended December 2017.
Dividends from his direct holdings amount to N51,557,928. Dividends from his indirect holdings amount to N620,145,598.
His gross earnings from interim dividends amount to N671,703,526.
MIA
Prominent banking billionaires Oba Otudeko and Mike Adenuga didn’t feature on the list as Sterling and FBN Holdings did not pay interim dividends.
It is not possibe for Jim Ovia to have earned 9.42 billion naira as interim dividends for 2018 as claimed in your article. Please rework the maths. Also United Alliance is a joint patnership between Herbert Wigwe and Aigboje Aig Imoukhuede (the immediate past MD of Access Bank) so attributing the shares in the company solely to Herbert Wigwe is misleading
Thank you for your observation. We have no knowledge of the current shareholding between both Aig and Herbert in United Alliance. Shares are attributed to directors that exercise significant influence through their holdings in these firms.
What Abiola is trying to say is that you not being on the board does not reduce your ownership or influence in any Bank/Company.E.G Fola Adeola (GT Bank)