Banking

Diamond Bank Shareholder Loses N21b

Published

7 years ago

27/11/2018

By Dipo Olowookere

There are strong indications that one of the major shareholders in Diamond Bank Plc, a financial institution on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), may eventually lose up to N20.6 billion or $67.2 million of its investment in the local lender.

Diamond Bank has been struggling lately and there are fears that it could go the way of defunct Skye Bank Plc, which had its operating licence revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in September 2018 for low capital base.

Four years ago, an American firm believed to be the world’s largest private equity group, Carlyle Group, invested heavily in Diamond Bank.

At the time, Diamond Bank organized an operation to raise N50 billion (about $303 million at the exchange rate of N165 for $1 at that time), with Carlyle then acquiring about 4.16 billion shares at N5.80k each (at about N24.1 billion or $146.2 million), becoming the leading individual shareholder in the bank with 17.7 percent of the shares.

But today, with exchange rate at about N306 at the interbank segment of the foreign exchange market, Diamond Bank is only worth 86 kobo per share.

Business Post reports that Carlyle Group has already lost N4.94k per share of its investment in Diamond Bank, resulting in a total of N20.6 billion or $67.2 million.

At the present market value, Carlyle’s participation in Diamond Bank is worth about $11.7 million because the share’s prices never exceeded purchase price and yield per share has been negative.

Instead of the awaited expansion, Diamond Bank sold some of its operations in the West African region, Nigeria excluded, and, its profit kept falling. From N1.43 net profit per share in 2014, it fell to N0.36 due notably to a significant drop in trading revenues and there are fears already that the 2018 financial year could follow the same trend.

Indeed, even though trading revenues are important once again, they are negatively affected by a fall in the net interest margin at the end of the first nine months of 2018.

“Carlyle is very pleased to join the Diamond Bank Group as an investor. Diamond Bank is one of the most recognised retail banks in Nigeria, with a strong corporate culture, best-in-class management team, advanced technology, large retail franchise, and innovative product and service offerings,” Managing Director and Head of West Africa for the Carlyle Sub-Saharan Africa Fund which was the investment vehicle at the time, Geneviève Sangudi, had said four years ago when the firm keyed into the Diamond Bank dream.

But according to Ecofin Agency, things never went as planned for Carlyle Group because of the fall in oil prices and Diamond Bank was already suffering from an important volume of bad debts, which continued to lose value.

A solution: quickly find foreign investors to support the group

In such conditions, Diamond Bank cannot rely on its shareholders and is thus obliged to quickly find a solution to settle an important part of its international bonds that will mature in May 2019 and this is a great challenge since its liquid assets in foreign currency represents 25 percent of the $200 million Eurobond to be settled.

Recently, Moody’s downgraded Diamond Bank’s issuer rating from caa1 to caa3 due to two main reasons; first, there is a great volume of bad debts that the bank is not really able to solve yet; from 42 percent in December 2017, it lost two percent points at the end of the third quarter of 2018 to reach 40 percent.

Secondly, important members of its board resigned, signalling internal management problems. Moody’s thinks that this could impact the effort required to solve the bank’s bad debt problems (of which only 20 percent are sufficiently covered).

On November 23, 2018, Diamond Bank’s share gained 7.6 percent points after a week of value loss. It started the week of November 26, 2018, with a loss of 1.26 percent in value.

At the moment, Diamond Bank has a total of 23.1 million shares outstanding and an EPS of -70 kobo.

Banking

Secure IT, StockMed, 18 Others Make Wema Bank Hackaholics 6.0 Top 20 List

Published

2 days ago

18/12/2025

Modupe Gbadeyanka

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

The six edition of the Hackaholics of Wema Bank Plc has produced 20 top finalists shared equally between two streams, Ideathon and Hackathon.

The Hackathon finalists are Rapid DEV, Secure IT, Neurafeed, Trust Lock Babcock, Pulse Track, IlluminiTrust, Trust Lock FUTA, Fix Fraud AI, KASH Flow and VOC AI.

The Ideathon finalists include PLOY, Fertitude, VarsityScape, Mama ALERT, StockMed, Chao, All Arbitrate, FarmSlate, Sane AI and Cycle X.

They emerged after a two-day pre-pitch held on December 16 and 17, 2025, for the grand finale slated for Friday, December 19, 2025.

They grand finale of Hackaholics 6.0 will convene the top players in Africa’s tech and innovation ecosystem, creating an avenue for these finalists to not only put their creativity to the ultimate test but also give their solutions visibility to potential investors for additional funding opportunities beyond the prizes to be won.

The prizes to be won for the Ideathon include N25 million for the winner, N20 million for the first runner-up, N15 million for the second runner-up and N5 million each for two women-led teams.

In the Hackathon category, the first to fourth-place winners will receive N20 million, N15 million, N10 million and N5 million, respectively.

The pre-pitch saw the top 43 contenders battle in a game of innovation and problem solving, presenting compelling pitches for a chance to make it to top 10 in their respective streams.

After a rigorous stretch of pitches and presentations, the top 20 emerged, securing their spot in the grand finale of Hackaholics 6.0.

“Hackaholics started off as a hackathon and morphed into an ideation. For Hackaholics 6.0, the sixth edition, we decided to give both the builders of new solutions and the refiners of existing ones, an opportunity to make meaningful impact.

“For us at Wema Bank, we understand that innovation isn’t just building from scratch. Sometimes, it’s looking at what exists and developing new ways to optimise that and create more efficiency. This is the idea behind our two-stream Ideathon-Hackathon structure.

“Every year, Hackaholics shows us just how eager and motivated Nigerian youth are when it comes to exploring creativity and innovation, and we are honoured to be the institution that provides them with the platform and resources to put this drive to good use.

“We toured seven cities, indulged 1,460 participants and discovered hundreds of remarkable ideas; some of which needed some refining and some of which deserved to move to the next stage.

“For those who needed to go back to the drawing board, we provided useful guidance and for the top contenders, we were able to shortlist to the top 43, who proceeded to the pre-pitch. To every participant, Wema Bank is proud of you. This is just the beginning,” the chief executive of Wema Bank, Mr Moruf Oseni, said.

Banking

Customs to Penalise Banks for Delayed Revenue Remittance

Published

2 days ago

18/12/2025

Adedapo Adesanya

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says it will enforce penalties against designated banks that delay the remittance of customs revenue, in a move aimed at strengthening transparency and safeguarding government earnings.

This was disclosed in a statement on the NCS official account on X, formerly known as Twitter and signed by its spokesman, Mr Abdullahi Maiwada, who said the delays undermine the efficiency, transparency, and integrity of government revenue administration.

“The Nigeria Customs Service has noted instances of delayed remittance of customs revenue by some designated banks following reconciliation of collections processed through the B’odogwu platform,” the statement read.

“Such delays constitute a breach of remittance obligations and negatively impact the efficiency, transparency, and integrity of government revenue administration.

“In line with the provisions of the Service Level Agreement executed between the Nigeria Customs Service and designated banks, the Service hereby notifies stakeholders of the commencement of enforcement actions against banks found to be in default of agreed remittance timelines.”

Mr Maiwada disclosed that any bank that fails to remit collected Customs revenue within the prescribed timeline will be liable to penalty interest calculated at three per cent above the prevailing Nigerian Interbank Offered Rate for the period of the delay.

He added that affected banks would be formally notified of the delayed amounts, the applicable penalty, and the deadline for settlement.

“Accordingly, any designated bank that fails to remit collected Customs revenue within the prescribed period shall be liable to penalty interest calculated at three per cent above the prevailing Nigerian Interbank Offered Rate for the duration of the delay.

“Affected banks will receive formal notifications indicating the delayed amount, applicable penalty, and the timeline for settlement,” the statement read.

Banking

First Bank Deputy MD Sells Off 11.8m First Holdco Shares Worth N366.9m

Published

2 days ago

18/12/2025

Aduragbemi Omiyale

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

The deputy managing director of First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Limited, Mr Ini Ebong, has offloaded some shares of FBN Holdings Plc, the parent firm of the banking institution.

A regulatory notice from the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited confirmed the development on Thursday.

It was disclosed that the transaction occurred on Friday, December 12, 2025, on the floor of the stock exchange.

The sale involved about 11.8 million shares, precisely 11,783,333 units traded at N31.14 per share, amounting to about N366.9 million.

Mr Ebong, who studied Architecture from University of Ife and obtained Bachelor and Master of Science degrees, became the DMD of First Bank in June 2024. Prior to this appointment, he was Executive Director, Treasury and International Banking since January 2022.

He was previously the Group Executive, Treasury and International Banking, a position he held since 2016 after serving as the bank’s Treasurer from 2011 to 2016.

Before joining First Bank, he was the Head of African Fixed Income and Local Markets Trading, Renaissance Securities Nigeria Limited, the Nigerian registered subsidiary of Renaissance Capital. He also worked with Citigroup for 14 years as Country Treasurer and Sales and Trading Business Head.

He has a passion for market development and has worked actively to drive change and internationalisation of the Nigerian financial markets: foreign exchange, fixed income and securities.

He has worked closely with regulatory bodies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Debt Management Office (DMO) in assisting with the development of fresh monetary and foreign exchange policies, to broaden and deepen markets and open them up to international practices.

At various times he has facilitated and delivered courses and seminars on a wide variety of subjects covering Money Markets, Securities and Foreign exchange trading and market risk management subjects to regulators, corporate customers, banks and market participants.