CBN counters Barbican Capital’s claims in response to suit over shares in FBN Holdings

Business a.m. Reporter

According to the Nigerian apex financial institution, which also keeps records of the status of institutions under its regulatory purview, Otudeko’s Barbican Capital in its submission of supporting documents for its holdings could only show ownership of 3,110,400,619 units covering 8.67 percent of FBN Holdings shares.

The major defendant in the Barbican suit, FBN Holdings, has also asked the Federal High Court, where Barbican filed the original suit, to dismiss it stating that Barbican has concealed material fact that has emerged from an ongoing verification exercise by the regulator Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) concerning its shareholding in the financial institution.

Orjiakor Nwabueze, deputy director, banking supervision department of the CBN, who deposed to the 60-paragraph affidavit, admitted that Barbican, through its parent company, had actually submitted a claim of ownership of 5,450,999,924 shares in FBN Holdings Plc, and sought the apex bank’s consent and approval, but that it (CBN) was unable to verify some of its claims to the entire ownership as submitted.

The CBN affidavit response stated:

“In the course of the verification exercise, plaintiff and its group could only provide evidence for purchase of 3,110,400,619 shares representing 8.67 percent of the shares of the Defendant and could not provide any evidence of purchase of the remaining 2,340,599,305 shares representing 6.52 percent of the shares of the defendant being claimed by the Plaintiff and its group.

“Whilst the verification of shares was ongoing, a third party (CBN), having realised that necessary documents were not supplied or provided, wrote the letter of January 5, 2024, to the defendant notifying it of some documents/information not provided to aid the verification exercise. Attached hereto as “Exhibit H” is a copy of the aforesaid letter.

“The third party instructed plaintiff and its group to provide material evidence to prove its purchase/ownership of the outstanding 2,340,599,305 shares to verify their authenticity. The 3rd party is still expecting the Plaintiff and its group to come back with relevant materials to enable the 3rd party [to] take a decision to grant consent/approval or not to the outstanding shares.”

FBN Holdings is understood to have been informed about the verification exercise conducted by the CBN and the result showing that only 3,110,400,619 shares (representing 8.67 percent of Defendant’s total shares) of the total volume of shares being claimed by the Plaintiff and its group could be verified while 2,340,599,305 shares (representing 6.52 percent shares of defendant’s total share capital) could not be verified.

In suit no. FHC/L/CS/ 1172/24, Barbican Capital, an affiliate company of Honeywell Group Limited, had claimed that it acquired about 5,386,397,202 shares of FBN Holdings Plc, representing 15.1 percent of its shares listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).