By Dipo Olowookere
The Group Managing Director of FBN Holdings Plc, Mr Urum Kalu Eke, has added additional 5 million stocks of the company to his portfolio.
Mr Eke, who is a respected banker, bought the additional shares on Wednesday, April 29, 2020, a disclosure from FBN Holdings on Thursday confirmed.
He was said to have acquired the stocks at a unit price of N4.50, amounting to a total of N22.5 million for the transaction.
FBN Holdings is one of the companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
Business Post reports that before the present global health crisis, shares of the company were trading at around N7 to N8, but in the past five to six weeks, the share price has dropped to the N4 region and even lesser at a point.
It started trading at nearly N5 in the past few weeks as a result of influx of foreign portfolio investors into the stock market when they could not repatriate their Dollar funds out of the country.
FBN Holdings has gone through tough periods in the past, but it is presently trying to reclaim its top position at the market and the banking industry as well.
The firm had been battling with non-performing loans (NPLs), which rose to double digits. But efforts of the management and the board ensured that in the 2019 financial year, the NPL was pruned to a single digit.
This week, the company rewarded its shareholders with a dividend payment of 38 kobo per share for the 2019 fiscal year.
Observers in the nation’s stock market are speculating that Mr Eke may have reinvested his share of the reward into the company because of the value he sees in FBN Holdings.
Though FBN Holdings is not fully at par with its other peers like GTBank and Zenith Bank, analysts say the lender has the potentials of rising to that level and pay handsome dividends to shareholders.
The duo of GTBank and Zenith Bank paid N2.50 each to their respective shareholders this year for the 2019 financial year.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Aduragbemi Omiyale