Ibori Claimed 30% Ownership of Oando – British Prosecutor

James Ibori

The shares of Oando Plc fell by 10 per cent or N1.15 to N10.35 on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Tuesday, a day after a British prosecutor claimed that jailed former governor of Delta State, Mr. James Ibori, hid some of his assets in the company.

The prosecutor, Sasha Wass, had been quoted by Reuters in a report on Monday as saying that money also passed from Oando’s accounts into Ibori’s Swiss accounts.

Wass was also quoted as telling the court that she would be presenting evidence that the former governor, who is serving a 13-year jail term in the United Kingdom for fraud and money-laundering, had “asserted ownership of a large part” of Oando, which is listed in Lagos, Johannesburg and Toronto.

 “The Crown will assert that Oando is a company where James Ibori has hidden assets,” Wass said.

But the Head, Corporate Communications, Oando Plc, Mr. Ainojie Irune, had denied the report that Ibori, who had in February 2012 pleaded guilty to 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering worth £50m, owned a larger part of the oil company.

He said, “We state categorically that Mr. James Ibori does not own ‘a large part of Oando’ and that this statement is incorrect and misleading. Oando is a publicly traded company listed on the Nigerian and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges and does not and cannot control the trading in its securities on the floor of the respective Exchanges.”

Irune explained that based on the company’s current shareholding register, Ibori’s shareholding stood at 443 shares out of a total issued and paid up share capital of 6.8 billion ordinary shares, “which is clearly insignificant, and cannot be considered as ‘a large part of Oando.”

On the claim that money passed from the oil firm to the former governor’s Swiss accounts, he said, “Oando also stated that it does accept that sometime in 2004, in the normal course of its business, it sold some of its foreign exchange earnings for naira and the recipient of the US dollars was a company, which has now turned out to be one controlled by James Ibori.

“At the time of the transaction, this information was unknown to Oando. The total amount was $2.7m made in three separate transactions over a period of about seven months. This amount was insignificant considering the company’s turnover of approximately $800m in 2004.”

Regardless, at the close of trading activities on the NSE on Monday when the news broke, the company’s shares fell by 2.29 per cent or 27 kobo to close at N11.50 after investors traded 1.037 million of its shares worth N11.922m in 116 deals.
The company’s stocks declined sharply on Tuesday after reports of the British prosecutor’s claims and the oil firm’s reaction were published by some national dailies.

At the close of trading on Tuesday, investors had traded 8.131 million of Oando’s shares valued at N85.916m in 331 deals with the company emerging the top price loser for the day.
The Chief Executive Officer, Trust Yields Securities Limited, Mr. Ola Yussuf, said the “negative news” was responsible for the fall in the company’s share price.

He explained that some shareholders were afraid that if Ibori had substantial shareholdings the British Government might take over the company.
While admitting that it was natural for people to react to such news as they had done, he told our correspondent that the decision by some investors to sell off their shareholdings in the company was hasty.

“It is natural but that doesn’t mean that they are right. Because even if Ibori had substantial holdings, even if the British government takes over, it would just be a change of ownership; it doesn’t affect the company,” he said.
He added that considering the fact that the company had come out to say the ex-governors holdings were insignificant, the right thing for investors to do is to wait for a few days to get more information on the issue before deciding whether to sell their shares.

September 18, 2013