Nigeria’s equities market ended August on a cautious note, holding onto a slim 0.31% gain despite heavy selloffs that erased much of the month’s earlier advance.
The All-Share Index opened at 139,863.5 points and briefly surged past the 146,000-mark mid-month, buoyed by momentum from July’s rally. But the gains proved fleeting.
A reversal in oil and gas stocks, combined with weakness in cement majors, dragged the benchmark down more than 3,500 points in the third week. The slide deepened with another 708-point drop in the final week, paring back almost all of August’s progress.
The index eventually closed at 140,295.5 points, just 432 points above where it began. While the headline gain looked modest, the underlying shifts were stark: some of Nigeria’s wealthiest investors booked billions in paper profits, while others absorbed steep markdowns in their banking and energy holdings.
Against this backdrop, fortunes tied to cement, consumer goods, energy, and finance experienced mixed reactions in terms of share price gains as well as losses.
In this article, we look at Nigerian billionaires with the highest share gains/losses in August 2025.
Loss: -N21 billion
Tony Elumelu, chairman of Heirs Holdings and one of Nigeria’s most influential investors, saw the value of his listed holdings tumble in August, largely due to weakness in Transnational Corporation Plc (Transcorp).
Transcorp’s share price slid from N53.00 at the start of the month to N47.00 at the close, an 11% decline. That single drop weighed heavily on Elumelu’s portfolio, given the size of his holdings.
- Direct shares: Elumelu owns 68.3 million Transcorp shares, which lost about N409.6 million in value.
- Indirect shares via Heirs Holdings: An additional 68.4 million shares shed roughly N410.3 million.
- Indirect shares via HH Capital Limited: His controlling vehicle, with nearly 3 billion shares, recorded the steepest paper loss, about N18 billion.
Together, the Transcorp positions erased nearly N19 billion in value in just one month.
Losses also extended to United Bank for Africa (UBA), where Elumelu holds both direct and indirect stakes. UBA’s share price slipped 2% in August, from N49.60 to N48.65. His 195.1 million direct shares dropped by about N185.3 million, while his 2.35 billion indirect shares shed around N2.2 billion.
By contrast, Elumelu’s other listed companies, Transcorp Hotels Plc, Transcorp Power Plc, United Capital Plc, and Afriland Properties Plc, were flat in August.
In all, Elumelu lost an estimated N21 billion in market value during the month.
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