What’s Happening To Mike Adenuga: Drops On Billionaire Ranking, As Glo Loses Almost N0.2billion Investment

Globacom founder, Mike Adenuga, began last year as the fourth richest man in Africa, a position he held alongside South African Fashion and retail business mogul, Johann Rupert.

However, Rupert’s has gone on to become the second richest person on the continent with a $8.1 billion, behind cement businessman, Aliko Dangote, who is worth $14 billion.

Adenuga on his part, has dropped two places, falling below BUA Cement founder, Abdulsamad Rabiu, whom he sat comfortably above last year, as the latter was ranked sixth according to data obtained from Forbes.

The Globacom boss has experienced a sluggish or no growth within the period Prime Business Africa monitored, remaining at $6.3 billion, cause Abdulsamad to leapfrog him, with the owner of BUA now worth $6.7 billion.

It’s interesting to note that Adenuga was ranked third and worth $7.7 billion in 2020, during COVID-19 breakout year, when telecommunications companies enjoyed massive growth in data and airtime demand.

Aside telco business, Adenuga owns other businesses, Conoil, in the oil and gas sector, with the industry suffering an onslaught from COVID-19, due to disruption in vehicular movements and lockdown of industries dependent on oil and gas.

Prime Business Africa understands that Adenuga also holds a significant 6.86% ownership stake in Sterling Bank, through direct and indirect investment in the Nigerian commercial bank.

According to PBA analysis of his stake, it was observed that the lack of growth in Adenuga’s wealth could also be tied to the investment in Sterling Bank, as the firm’s share is down -26.6% between January 2021-to-date. The share fell to N1.54kobo, from N2.10kobo.

This resulted to a combined loss of N1.10 billion (factoring direct and indirect shares) in Adenuga’s total investment in Sterling Bank, dwindling from N4.14 billion to N3.04 billion within the one year and six months period.

Note that Adenuga have a direct investment of 1.62 billion shares (5.63% ownership stake) in Sterling Bank, while he holds another 354.4 million shares (1.23% ownership stake) through Glomobile Limited in the lender.

Prime Business Africa analysis shows that the direct investment is now worth N2.49 billion as of June 28, 2022, falling short of the N3.40 billion it was worth early last year.

Meanwhile, Glomobile Limited’s investment worth has also crumbled alongside Sterling Bank share, falling to N545.8 million. This is in contrast to the N744.3 million Glo’s investment was worth in the Abubakar Suleiman-run bank.

A breakdown of the loss showed Glo has lost N198.49 million to the depreciation of Sterling Bank in the capital market, amid investors declining confidence, while Adenuga has directly lost N907.4 million.