Jimoh Ibrahims’ AP acquisition fails
March 29th, 2007 Ogbuotobo Chuks || chuks@stockmarketnigeria.com
By Ogbuotobo Chuks
President Olusegun Obasanjo has stopped the sale of 28.7 percent equity interest of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) in African Petroleum Plc (AP), to Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim. Consequently, he has directed the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) to take over the controversial shares and advertise them through a competitive tender.
The NNPC had acquired the equity interest through its staff pension fund in 2005 in a debt-swap of over N10 billion AP owed the corporation. The acquisition was subsequently gazetted and slated for sale to the Nigerian public.
It was also confiemed that Barrister Ibrahim, who is currently the Group Managing Director of NICON Group and a chain of other companies including Global Fleet Limited, had in the past couple of weeks been mopping AP shares at the floor of the exchange.
The Minster of Energy, according to sources was trying to help Ibrahim buy the NNPC shares but it appears the NNPC kicked against it and informed President Obasanjo who cancelled the deal at the point of payment .
If the NNPC shares had been sold to Jimoh Ibrahim, he would have been second time lucky after his earlier bid to purchase the shares divested by Sadiq Petroleum was not approved by the capital market regulators.
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