FCMB Turns 90 Degrees To Founder Balogun’s First Love, Buys 60% Stake In AIICO Pensions
The Oasis Reporters
July 27, 2021
By Greg Abolo
When FCMB Group Plc announced that it had purchased a 60 per cent stake in AIICO Pension Managers Limited recently, those that know, understood what close ties mean.
The Tier-2 lender, First City Monument Bank FCMB’s founder, Otunba Subomi Balogun started out in his corporate career, in Insurance, and he was a top guru for that matter. But boardroom squabbles seemed to have forced the big player out.
He didn’t sit back licking his wounds. He moved on and his star shone as the heavens opened the eyes of Nigeria’s military president then, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida to liberalize the banking sector.
Otunba Subomi Balogun reached out and applied for a merchant banking license by substantially owning the new First City Merchant Bank, which metamorphosed into First City Monument Bank at the dawn of Universal banking, rolled into place by the government.
The confirmation by AIICO Insurance of the announcement last week Wednesday with a notification to the Nigerian Exchange Limited and the investing public that it had sold 33.9 per cent of its shareholding in AIICO Pensions which added to the 26.1 per cent FCMB bought from other shareholders in the company, has thus made FCMB a majority shareholder. This was lower than a 70 per cent stake earlier stated to the NGX, according to insider accounts.
FCMB said, “The acquired stake was reduced from the initial 96.3 per cent stake in our notification to the NGX on 25 June 2020 to comply with the transaction structure approved by regulators.”
The company added that the acquisition was to combine the activities of its pension management subsidiary, FCMB Pensions Limited, with that of AIICO Pensions to build a stronger and more resilient business.
AIICO was quoted as saying, “In line with the approval from the National Pension Commission, the transaction is subject to a merger of AIICO Pensions and FCMB Pensions.
“This is in compliance with the PENCOM’s circular ref: PENCOM/INSP/CIR/SURV/15/03 of September 21, 2015, which states that ‘no individual, group of individuals or company shall have direct or indirect ownership/shareholding of 5 per cent and above in more than one licensed Pension Fund Operator’.
“Therefore, following this sale, AIICO Pensions ceases to be a subsidiary of AIICO Insurance and has now become an indirect subsidiary of FCMB Group Plc.”
This move by the FCMB group with a bank as it’s point head, resembles very closely, the act of American multi billionaire investor, Ross Perot, who at a time, decades ago, made a go for the US presidency as an independent candidate, probably for the fun of it.
Ross Perot had worked in Insurance as a young man. He lost that job under unhappy circumstances. While he appealed for arbitration, he forged ahead in business and made it real big, becoming a multi billionaire before the eighties.
Guess what he did next !
While his appeal case for a job restoration was still lingering without diligent attention in the Insurance company that fired him, Ross Perot bent over backwards and bought his own ex-employer.
That was a huge laugh all over the United States.
Well, Otunba Subomi Balogun became a multi billionaire steering his FCMB institution and with his hand made strong by his investment sense, has now come to buy into insurance.
One of his ex-staff told us in Kano years ago, if Otunba hadn’t quit Insurance, would he have become a bank owner ?
In conclusion, we say that the top Tier-2 lender has always been very strong in Securities, all aspects of stockbroking and now, Insurance is a second home. That’s in addition to it’s strong core banking exploits that has seen it move from strength to strength.
Written by Greg Abolo.
gregabolo@gmail.com
