Ecobank, a West African financial services group, wants to acquire the hares recently obtained by Nigerian tycoon Oba Otudeko in FBN Holdings due to his indebtedness to the bank.
Reports say Otudeko and his affiliated companies owe Ecobank over NGN13.5 billion ($17.1 million).
In 2017, Otudeko and his companies, including Honeywell Group Limited, Siloam Global Services Limited, Anchorage Leisures Limited, and Honeywell Flour Mills, were hit with several lawsuits by Ecobank Nigeria at the Federal High Court in Lagos.
These legal actions aimed to recover the companies’ debts to the bank. Otudeko had personally guaranteed the loans, resulting in the companies’ indebtedness.
Despite Otudeko and his companies disputing their debts, the Supreme Court affirmed their indebtedness in January of this year.
The court’s judgment ordered them to repay all outstanding debts to the bank, along with interest.
Ecobank in the lawsuits is accusing Oba Otudeko of intentionally diverting his and his debtor companies’ assets to evade debt payment, in defiance of the Supreme Court’s directive.
In a letter obtained by Billionaires Africa, Kunle Ogunba and Associates, Ecobank’s counsel, have accused Otudeko diverting his assets and funds through a newly created special purpose vehicle named Barbican Capital Limited rather than paying his debt.
Following the Supreme Court judgment, Otudeko used this vehicle to purchase 4,770,269,843 shares of FBN Holdings from various institutional shareholders.
The shares were subsequently transferred to at least ten different proxy accounts.
Ecobank’s lawyers have urged FBN Holdings to reject acknowledging the shares as belonging to Otudeko, as doing so would violate the Supreme Court’s judgment.
The Billionaires.Africa reports that Ecobank is now attempting to seize the disputed shares.
