First HoldCo To Pay Out 60% Of Profit As Dividends To Shareholders
- By Metropolix ~
- July 31, 2026 --
- 0 Comment
— FirstHoldco logo (file)
By Bunmi Onakan
First HoldCo will distribute at least 60% of its profit after tax to shareholders every year, under a policy its board approved on Tuesday, and the largest single beneficiary will be the chairman who has spent this year buying the stock.
The board disclosed the decision in a filing to the Nigerian Exchange on Thursday, describing it as subject to regulatory approval. It follows half-year results showing profit after tax of ₦526.1 billion, about $378.5 million, up 81.6% year on year.
Applied to that figure, a 60% payout implies roughly ₦315.7 billion, or $227.1 million, available for distribution on the first six months alone.
Femi Otedola holds 11,956,589,264 shares following his purchase of a further 1,779,094,976 at ₦124.9 each, disclosed this week. Against a register of roughly 45.5 billion shares, his share of that distribution would come to about ₦83 billion, or $59.7 million, by Billionaires.Africa’s calculation.
The board has set a policy rather than declared a dividend, and no payment date or per-share figure has been given.
Otedola framed the decision as a return on two difficult years. “Over the last two years, we have undertaken difficult but necessary actions to strengthen governance, clean up the balance sheet, restore confidence, rebuild capital, and reposition the Group for long-term growth,” he said in the filing. He added that as performance improves, it is appropriate that shareholders participate more directly in the value being created.
The numbers behind the policy are the strongest the group has reported. Gross earnings reached ₦1.93 trillion, or $1.39 billion, up 16.7%. Operating income rose 25.8% to ₦1.38 trillion. Pre-tax profit climbed 83.5% to ₦653.5 billion, about $470.1 million. Total assets stand at ₦30.6 trillion, roughly $22 billion, against customer deposits of ₦21.9 trillion.
What the board emphasised was where the growth came from. Non-interest income expanded to ₦497.1 billion, or $357.6 million, drawn from electronic banking, trade services, funds transfer, brokerage, asset management and investment banking. The investment banking and asset management businesses generated about ₦46 billion in gross earnings and ₦27.4 billion in pre-tax profit on their own.
That matters for a group whose identity has been bound to a single bank since 1894. First HoldCo is the holding company for First Bank of Nigeria, the country’s oldest financial institution, and the filing repeatedly stresses the contribution of non-banking subsidiaries as validation of a diversified strategy.
The capital position has also been repaired. The board recorded that FirstBank’s capital adequacy ratio has been restored above the regulatory minimum ahead of expectations, following a rights issue and private placement. The group is working toward a ₦1 trillion paid-in capital objective.
Those capital raises carry a cost that runs against the dividend arithmetic. Shares in issue have grown from about 41.96 billion at the end of 2025 to roughly 45.5 billion now, which is why market capitalisation has risen 187% this year against a share price gain of 165%. A larger register means any given payout ratio spreads across more shares.
Otedola has been buying into that expansion rather than being diluted by it. He held 6.68 billion shares, or 15.95%, in June 2025. He reached 8.06 billion by March, 9.28 billion by June, passed 10 billion through his vehicle Calvados Global Services this month, and now sits near 11.96 billion. He has said repeatedly that the money committed is his own rather than borrowed.
The accumulation now has an income argument attached to it. A shareholder who has spent roughly ₦550 billion assembling a position has, as of Thursday, a board commitment to return a majority of earnings every year.
First HoldCo overtook Zenith Bank on July 20 to become Nigeria’s most valuable lender, closing Tuesday at a market capitalisation of ₦5.78 trillion, about $4.16 billion. Shares finished at ₦127 against ₦47.90 at the end of 2025.
The board said it expects the performance trajectory to continue through the remainder of 2026.
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