CBN disputes Barbican’s FBNH shareholding claim

The Central Bank of Nigeria has said that investment firm, Barbican Capital Limited, was only able to provide evidence to support its ownership of 3,110,400,619 units of shares representing 8.67 per cent of the shares of FBN Holdings.

This was indicated in the apex bank’s response seen by The PUNCH to the suit filed by the investment firm alleging alteration of its shareholding in the financial institution.

The CBN in a 60-paragraph deposed by a Deputy Director, Banking Supervision Department of the bank, Orjiakor Nwabueze, said that while the plaintiff, through its parent company, submitted a claim of 5,450,999,924 shares of the defendant’s (FBNH) and wanted its consent/approval for the shareholding, it was only able to verify a fraction of the claim.

“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 per cent 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 per cent 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 take a decision to grant consent/approval or not to the outstanding shares,” part of the response read.

The CBN said that it had communicated the outcome of the verification exercise conducted so far to FBN Holdings, which was that only 3,110,400,619 shares (representing 8.67 per cent of Defendant’s total shares) of the total volume of shares being claimed by Plaintiff and its group could be verified while 2,340,599,305 shares (representing 6.52 per cent shares of defendant’s total share capital) could not be verified.

Also, FBN Holdings Plc has asked a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos to dismiss a suit saying that Barbican was concealing the fact of an ongoing verification exercise by the CBN of its shareholding.

In a 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 FBNH, representing 15.1 per cent of its shares listed on the Nigerian Exchange.