Photo: A cross-section of board members and executives across Heirs Holdings’ investee companies at the recently concluded Heirs Holdings group directors’ annual summit
Business a.m.
Heirs Holdings (HH), the leading pan-African investment company, recently held its annual group directors’ summit, bringing together over 100 board members representing all HH investee companies.
This event served as a platform for HH to strengthen its governance practices and identify business accomplishments, while fostering an environment of innovation and impact.
The HH Group summit, held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja from June 13 – 16, 2024, drew on the experience of board members of investee companies from sectors where HH invests: healthcare, power, energy, technology, financial services, hospitality, and real estate. Also present were trustees of the group’s philanthropy, the Tony Elumelu Foundation, which catalyses young entrepreneurs across Africa.
Speaking at the HH Group Summit, Tony Elumelu, group chairman, Heirs Holdings, emphasised HH’s mandate to ‘build to last’ and to “build for impact”.
He said: “Over the past decade, we have inculcated in our business the criticality of strong corporate governance practices. We only invest for the long term, strategically and patiently. These twin commitments are fundamental to our success; we are indeed building to last, redefining success in every sector we operate in, and demonstrating our purpose to improve lives and transform Africa”.
The HH Group summit culminated in a closing ceremony and dinner, hosting influential figures across Nigeria’s public and private sectors, including Kashim Shettima, the vice president of Nigeria, federal ministers, ambassadors, policy makers and leaders of civil society.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Vice President Shettima remarked, “When the history of Nigeria and indeed Africa’s banking history and revolution will be written, one name will stand out – having carved a niche for itself and engraved its name on the walls of banking and Africa’s entrepreneurship.
Tony Elumelu has become an enigma, a banking colossus, a power industrialist, and a force that cannot be ignored. He is one of our own who believed in Nigeria and threw his heart into it. He is a Nigerian economist, entrepreneur and indeed a philanthropist, who has given life meaning to millions of Nigerians and Africans.”
The success and impact of Heirs Holdings reflects the philosophy of Africapitalism, the belief that the African private sector can change the course of African development, but that it must be committed to doing good and doing well.
To date, HH investee companies employ over 40,000 people across 20 African countries, the United Kingdom, UAE, France, and the United States of America. The HH portfolio includes investments in Heirs Energies Limited, Africa’s leading indigenous-owned integrated energy company, that produces over 40 thousand barrels per day (bpd), which is transforming resource-based value chains, making African resources work for Africa.
Another investment is the Heirs Insurance Group, which champions financial inclusion and leads the digital transformation of the insurance ecosystem in Nigeria, with a mission to democratise access to insurance; United Capital Plc, plays a prominent role in investment banking, asset management, trusteeship, securities trading, wealth management, and consumer finance.
Others include: Transcorp Group Plc, Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate, whose subsidiaries include Transcorp Power,one of the leading producers of electricity in West Africa. Transcorp Hotels Plc, Nigeria’s foremost hospitality brand; our healthcare brands, Avon HMO and Avon Medical, which are providing Nigerians with access to quality healthcare; Afriland Properties, a real estate investor and developer; technology brands, Redtech and Heirs Technologies, championing digital transformation; and the United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Africa’s global bank, which serves more than 45 million customers globally, across four continents.
The HH Group also boasts three NSE listed stocks each worth over N1 trillion (SWOOTs) within its portfolio and manages an investment portfolio size worth N10.6 trillion.
Heirs Holdings’ philanthropy, the Tony Elumelu Foundation, stated that it has impacted 1.5 million young Africans, and disbursed $100 million in seed capital to 20,000 young African entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries, whose businesses have created over 400,000 jobs.
