Billionaire Tony Elumelu Buys Additional N43.9bn Shares in UBA

Tony Elumelu, the chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA), has made another major investment in the bank by snapping up N43.9 billion worth of its shares over just two days.

The purchase was confirmed by Bili Odum, UBA’s group company secretary, who shared the details in a filing to the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) on Monday.

According to the filing, Elumelu bought a total of 1,267,669,350 shares between May 29 and May 30, at an average price of N34.64 per share. The transaction, valued at N43.91 billion, included several bulk purchases, among them, 50 million shares bought at various prices between N34.55 and N34.75, and an additional 17.67 million shares at N34.70 each.

This isn’t Elumelu’s first big move this month. Just a week earlier, on May 23, he acquired another 45,034,044 shares at N34.3 per share, amounting to about N1.53 billion.

Elumelu, who has long been one of UBA’s largest individual shareholders, announced plans on May 25 to further increase his stake in the bank. The timing aligns with UBA’s ongoing efforts to meet new regulatory requirements from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which recently directed all commercial banks with international licences to raise their capital base to N500 billion.

To comply, UBA’s chairman revealed that the bank plans to raise N144.8 billion in additional capital during the third quarter of 2025, adding to its existing capital base of N355.2 billion. Elumelu has assured stakeholders that the full capital raise will be completed before the CBN’s deadline.