Group Managing Director/CEO of Access Bank Herbert Wigwe has acquired new shares in the financial institution to expand his control over the company.
In the first and second weeks of November, the investment banker paid a visit to the stock market, spending N975.52 million to acquire 122 million shares of the Bank.
According to a document filed with the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Wigwe purchased the shares in three days.
He first acquired 45 million shares at the cost of N357.75 million on November 3, 2022, and then paid N314.02 million to purchase 39.50 million shares on November 4, 2022.
On Tuesday, Wigwe also bought 37.5 million shares worth N303,750,000, bringing the total amount he invested into Access Bank this year to N975.52 million.
The shares of the chief executive increased to 1.63 billion, up from the 1.50 billion he owned as at December 31, 2021, raising his controlling stake to 4.6 per cent, from the 4.2 per cent he held last year.
The value of the total investment, which is N13.11 billion, is below the N14.11 billion Wigwe’s investment was worth in the last days of December 2021.
Access Bank Plc is a diversified financial institution operating via a network of more than 600 branches and service outlets across 12 countries, with over 30 million customers.
Listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange since 1998, the Bank has over 900,000 shareholders and has recorded a phenomenal banking growth trajectory in the past decade.
Following its merger with Diamond Bank in March 2019, Access Bank became one of Africa’s largest retail banks by retail customer base.
The Bank has subsidiaries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom (with a branch in Dubai, UAE) and representative offices in China, Lebanon, and India
The current share price of Access Holdings Plc is NGN 8.05. ACCESSCORP closed its last trading day (Thursday, November 10, 2022) at 8.05 NGN per share on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX), recording a 0.6 percent gain over its previous closing price of 8.00 NGN.
Access began the year with a share price of 9.30 NGN but has since lost 13.4 percent off that price valuation, ranking it 112th on the NGX in terms of year-to-date performance.
