By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A majority shareholder in AIICO Insurance Plc, DF Holdings Limited, has acquired additional shares of the underwriting firm.
The transaction occurred on Thursday, December 31, 2020, a notice from the company and pasted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) revealed.
It was disclosed that DF Holdings bought a total of 474,603,596 units of the company’s stocks at N1.17 each, amounting to N555.3 million.
DF Holdings is owned by Mr Dele Fajemirokun, a Nigerian businessman, entrepreneur, investor, venture capitalist and philanthropist.
The graduate of Business Economics from the prestigious University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Ile-Ife, has more than four decades of extensive business building and wealth creation experience, both within and outside Nigeria; having built a business empire that is unique in comparison to conventional businesses.
He has cultivated and invested in a number of best-in-class companies in Nigeria; amassing a plethora of high-performance enterprises in key sectors of the economy including insurance, telecommunications, oil and gas, agriculture, the supply food chain and manufacturing.
Notable among these are the American International Insurance Company, (AIICO Plc), Food Concepts & Entertainment Plc (owners of Chicken Republic), Xerox Nigeria (now XHS), Johnson Wax (makers of Baygon & Raid insecticides), Kings Guards Securities Group Limited (one of the largest employers of labour, employing more than 25,000 people across the country in both private and public companies and parastatals, assets and difficult terrains), Logic Science Limited, FSS Gases Limited and BlueChip Communication Limited.
He is currently serving as Chairman/Director on the board of all these companies, and many others, totalling 43 companies overall.
His son, Mr Babatunde Fajemirokun, who the third generation of the Fajemirokun tree, is currently the Managing Director of AIICO Insurance Plc.
The United Kingdom-trained boardroom guru was once a visiting lecturer in the Division of Economics & Enterprise in Glasgow Caledonian University.
He has transformed the insurance company since assuming office, attracting investors, including LeapFrog III Nigeria Insurance Holdings Limited, which came into the company through a private placement, with the purchase of about 4.4 billion units of AIICO Insurance stocks at N1.20 each last year.
This deal increased the total issued and fully paid-up shares of AIICO Insurance Plc to 11,330,204,480 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each from 6,930,204,480 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka