Otedola finally speaks on Transcorp Plc, says he offered to buy company for N250bn

THE CABLE

Femi Otedola, billionaire businessman, says he offered to acquire Transcorp Plc for N250 billion and take the company’s market capitalisation to N2 trillion but his bid was rejected.

Recently, Otedola acquired a 5.52 percent stake in Transcorp Plc to become the second largest shareholder of the company, but then sold out his entire holding to Tony Elumelu, the chairman of the group.

Elumelu had said he welcomed Otedola’s investment in the company and looked forward to working with him, adding: “He’s my very good friend. In fact, I only follow two people on Instagram, my wife and Femi Otedola… that shows the level of friendship we have.”

In a press statement he shared with TheCable on Tuesday morning, Otedola spoke for the first time on the events surrounding his bid to take over the company.

He went down memory lane on his relationship with Elumelu and his plans for Transcorp before he opted out because his bid was rejected.

“In 2005, while Tony was the Managing Director of Standard Trust Bank he approached me to get funds to acquire UBA. I enthusiastically gave him $20million, which was N2 billion at that time to buy the necessary shares in UBA for the acquisition. After a short period of time the share price moved up and I decided it is was a good moment to sell and get out of the bank. However, Tony appealed to me to hold on to the shares as he was convinced that there were future prospects – so I kept the shares,” Otedelo said.