Battle for control of Transcorp raises, as Elumelu acquires additional 9.7bn share units
Heirs Holding Limited has announced the acquisition of an additional 9.7 billion units of Transcorp Group shares, bringing its total holdings to 25.6 per cent.
Before now, Femi Otedola had acquired the first 5 per cent of the stake of the company belonging to his friend and brother two weeks ago.
HH Group, however, went ahead last week to increase his stake by acquiring another 1.5% stake in Transcorp, taking his total stake to 6.5%.
HH Group is owned by Mr. Tony Elumelu, and with his latest move now has 36 per cent ownership of Transcorp through direct and indirect means, placing the company firmly in his hands.
Transcorp is a conglomerate that owns the following assets: Transcorp Hilton in Abuja and Lagos (the Lagos project is underway).
They own a power plant known as Genco in Ughelli and Afam. The power plant is the group’s biggest cash-producing asset, as it brought over 410 billion naira to their bottom line last year.
Transcorp Hotel Abuja just brought in N31 billion.
Then the group owns an oil well, OML 19, which they bought from Shell two years ago for $1 billion.
The business Transcorp is not doing badly either, as they made a revenue of N442.7 billion in 2022, with a profit of 30 billion naira.
While Femi Otedola’s target may be the Gencos at Ughelli and Afam, since he already owns the Geregu power plant, he has seen the possibilities and the value creation in that eco-system, and he believes that Tony is not running those power plants as efficiently as he should have.
Gerugu alone is worth N800 billion, while Transcorp, which has two bigger power plants, is worth only N100 billion.
It is now expected that Otedola will look to incrase his stake in the company following Elumelu’s recent acquisition of increased shareholding stake at Transcorp.