2019 has come and gone, leaving behind memories that might never be erased. In the Nigerian equity market, the year was not a very good one for many investors. As Nairametrics reported, the NSE All-Share Index ended the year with a 14.6% loss.
Related findings by Nairametrics Research also disclosed that the end of 2019 marked the worst performance by the Nigerian stock market in the last three decades.
While we sympathise with all the regular retail investors who might still be counting their losses, our focus is mainly on billionaire investors in the capital market. Note that these billionaires are majority shareholders in some of the biggest companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. How did their portfolios fare in the course of 2019?
Comparisons and calculations
To answer this question, we did some comparisons and calculations. The paper values of these billionaires’ shareholdings in various companies were compared by multiplying their shareholdings by the stock price of their companies on a year-on-year basis.
For the sake of clarity, let us first list out the names of the companies where the billionaires have shareholdings, along with their comparable share prices on a year-on-year basis.
[READ MORE: Nigerian billionaires and what happened to them in 2019)
- United Bank for Africa Plc: The share price stood at N7.85 at the end of 2018, compared to N7 in December 2019.
- Zenith Bank Plc: This tier-one bank ended 2018 with a share price of N23. However, by the end of 2019, the share price had fallen to N18.40.
- Access Bank Plc: Surprisingly, the Access Bank stock was a top performer in 2019, closing the year with share a price of N9.95 as against N6.80 during the comparable period in 2018.
- Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc: This oil and gas major closed 2018 with a share price of N592.50. As of 2019 year-end, the company’s share price stood at N549.70.
- Conoil Plc: Similarly, Conoil’s share price at the end of 2019 dropped to N18.50 compared to N23.25 which was recorded at the end of 2018.
- Dangote Cement Plc: Share price as at December ending, 2018 was N183, compared to share price of N140 in December 2019.
- Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc: Share price at the end of 2018 was N19.95. This is more than the N18.10 with which the company share price ended 2019.
- Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc: N15.25 in December 2018 compared to N13.80 in December 2019.
- Nascon Allied Industries Plc: The company’s share price at the end of 2018 was N18. By the end of 2019, it had dropped to N12.90.
- MRS Oil Nigeria Plc: At the end of 2018, the company’s share price was N25.70. Fast-forward to December 27th, 2019, it had dropped to N15.30.
- May & Baker Nigeria Plc ended 2018 with a share price of N2.45. As at December 27th, 2019, it was N1.93.
Focus on the billionaires and their portfolios
We shall now focus on how the changes in these companies’ share prices influenced the valuation of the shares held by the billionaires listed below.
Tony Elumelu
Tony Elumelu is a billionaire businessman and philanthropist who is most notable for being the Chairman of United Bank for Africa Plc. According to information obtained from the company’s recent audited financial report, Elumelu owns a total of 189,851,584 units of direct shares in UBA. He also owns a total of N2,045,354,576 units of indirect shareholding in the company. This brings his total shareholding to 2,235,206,160 units of shares.
When we multiplied by UBA’s share price of N7.85 as at December 2018, we found that the paper value of Elumelu’s shareholding in the company stood at N17.5 billion. However, when we multiplied the same units of shares by UBA’s 2019 year-end share price of N7, we got N15.6 billion.
What this means is that the value of Tony Elumelu’s shareholding declined by as much as N1.9 billion in 2019.
Jim Ovia
Information available in Zenith Bank’s audited financial report states that Mr Ovia (who currently serves as the company’s Chairman) holds a total of 5,059,336,405 units of direct and indirect shareholding. This makes him the biggest shareholder in the company, and one of Nigeria’s top billionaires.
Multiplying Jim Ovia’s total shareholding by N23 gave us N116.4 billion. A similar multiplication using the company’s 2019 year-end share price gave us N93 billion.
This means that the value of Jim Ovia’s shareholding in Zenith Bank reduced by N23.4 billion in 2019.
Herbert Wigwe
The total units of shareholding belonging to Access Bank’s Group CEO, Herbert Wigwe, stands at 1,441,522,910. This is according to information obtained from the company’s financial report. When multiplied by N6.80, this gave us N9.8 billion. We also multiplied the same units of shares by N9.95 and got N14.3 billion.
What this means is that the value of Wigwe’s shareholding increased by some N4.5 billion.
Abdulsamad Rabiu
Globally acclaimed businessman, Alhaji Abdulsamad Rabiu, is the Non-Executive Chairman of the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc (CCNN). The billionaire owns a total of 12,752,801,231 shares in the company. At a share price of N19.95 which the company recorded at the end of 2018, the value of Alhaji Rabiu’s shareholding in the company stood at N254.4 billion.
However, that amount had dropped by December 2019, due to the decline in the company’s share price. As noted above, CCNN’s share price stood at N18.10 as at December 27th last year. When we multiplied Alhaji Rabiu’s 12,752,801,231 units of shares by N18.10, we got N230.8 billion.
This means that the billionaire lost a whopping N23.6 billion last year.
[READ MORE: Nigerian billionaires and what happened to them in 2019)
Austin Avuru
Seplat’s outgoing Chief Executive Officer, Austin Avuru, owns a total of 70,823,139 units of shares in the oil and gas company. When multiplied by N592.50 with which the company ended in 2018, the monetary value of Mr Avuru’s shareholding was N41.9 billion. By the end of 2019, his share value had reduced to N38.9 billion, meaning that he lost about N3 billion last year.
Mike Adenuga
Mike Adenuga is the Chairman of Conoil Nigeria Plc and he has personal shareholdings in the company to the tune of 103,259,720 units of shares. He also has some 516,298,603 units of indirect shares through Conpetro Limited in Conoil Plc which owns 74.40% of Conoil’s issued share capital.
In total, Mike Adenuga owns 619,558,323 units of shares. This multiplied by Conoil’s share price of N23.25 at the end of 2018, amounted to N14.4 billion.
As at December 27th, 2019, the company’s share price was N18.50, meaning that the value of Mr Adenuga’s shareholding in the company dropped to N11.5 billion. In all, the billionaire lost N2.9 billion in 2019.
T.Y Danjuma
Retired Lieutenant General Danjuma, who currently serves as the Chairman of drug-manufacturing company, May & Baker Nigeria Plc, owns some 43.28% of the company’s entire issued share capital. The shareholding, all indirectly held by the billionaire, can be broken down thus:
- T.Y Holdings Ltd: 720, 878, 543
- Oil Tech Nigeria Ltd: 14, 874, 759
- Osis Yuvic Ltd: 11, 088, 000
These numbers sum up to 746, 841, 302 units of shares. We multiplied this by the N2.45 share price with which the company ended 2018 and got N1.8 billion. We also multiplied Danjuma’s total units of shares by the N1.93 share price with which the company ended in 2019 and got N1.4 billion. From the foregoing, Lieutenant Danjuma lost some N388 million last year.
Aliko Dangote
Alhaji Aliko Dangote owns 85% majority shareholding in Dangote Cement Plc through Dangote Industries Limited. The total units of shares he owns in the company amount to 14,484,431,294 shares. Multiplied by the company’s share price of N184 at the end of 2018, we have N2.7 trillion. When also multiplied by the company’s share price of N140 at the end of 2019, Dangote’s share value stood at N2.0 trillion. Subtract N2.0 trillion from N2.7 trillion, then we have N700 billion, representing how much value the billionaire lost in the course of last year.
Dangote International Limited also owns about 68% of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc’s issued shares. This amounts to some 8.16 billion units of shares. Multiplied by N15.25 with which the company’s share price ended 2018, we got N124.4 billion. The same units of shares multiplied by N13.80 with which the company’s share price ended 2019, gave us N112.6 billion.
It should be noted that Aliko Dangote also directly holds some 635,095,014 units of shares which translated to N9.7 billion when multiplied by N15.25. The same units of shares multiplied by N13.80 million translated to N8.8 billion.
Collectively, the share value of Dangote’s collective holding in Dangote Sugar Plc back in 2018 was N134.1 billion. As of December ending 2019, that value had dropped to N121.4 billion, thereby indicating that the value reduced as much as N12.7 billion.
Aliko Dangote indirectly has a 62.19% stake in NASCON Allied Industries Plc through Dangote Industries Limited, amounting to 1,647,763,557 units of shares. In the same vein, Aliko Dangote holds a direct stake of 635,095, 014 shares valued at N13.6 billion, bringing his total shareholding in the company to 2,282,858,571.
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Dangote’s total units of shares in NASCON Allied, multiplied by the company’s share price of N18 in December 2018, gave us N41 billion. When we multiplied the same amount of shares by a share price of N12.90 with which the company ended last year, we got N29.4 billion. N41 billion minus N29.4 billion equaled N11.6 billion.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that the paper value of Aliko Dangote’s entire shareholdings in Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, and NASCON Allied collectively reduced by a whopping 724.3 billion.
Note that we did not calculate the value of Alhaji’s shareholding in his flour business because of the recent acquisition of Dangote Flour Mills Plc by Olam.
NOTICE: A big thank you to all the readers who called our attention to some of the mathematical errors in this piece. The errors have now been rectified and the corrections effected.
2.7 trillion – 2.0 trillion= 700 billion.This further reduces the paper value of Alhaji Dangote
should be 700 billion not 7 billion.