PEOPLES GAZETTE
The market value of Oando Plc—run by President Bola Tinubu’s nephew, Wale Tinubu, —soared to record highs from N74 billion in 2023 to N1 trillion as of September 2024, indicating more than 1,000 per cent increase in valuation as Nigeria battled its worst cost-of-living and fuel crises.
While the nation was recording an exodus of multinational companies like pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, and Diageo (Guinness parent company) due to Nigeria’s harsh economic climate, Oando was leaving the league of companies generating billions of naira in revenue to 12 zeroes.
Oando —an average-performing oil company before Mr Tinubu’s government— recorded N74 billion profit after tax in the financial year ended 2023, a stark contrast to the previous year when it recorded a loss after tax.
But just a little over one year after Mr Tinubu became president, the company’s share price, which sold at six naira as of September 1, 2023, saw its market value rocket to an all-time high of N92.
The latest valuation elevated Oando to the top 10 most-capitalised companies on the Nigerian stock exchange.
The profit surge comes months after a Peoples Gazette’s January report exposed how Mr Tinubu was plotting to transfer Eni’s Nigerian assets to Oando in exchange for Eni’s repossession of Nigeria’s lucrative OPL 245 oil field in partnership with Shell.
The assets transfer was made public last week by the parties, who said the deal was about $785 million and denied any wrongdoing of Oando cornering juicy deals at the expense of Nigeria’s oil field.
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