The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Heirs Holdings

  • Heirs Holdings appoints new directors

    Heirs Holdings appoints new directors

    Heirs Holdings has appointed Obinna Ufudo and Sola Yomi-Ajayi as non-executive directors. The new directors bring extensive expertise in finance, energy, governance, and global markets and their appointments demonstrate Heirs Holdings’ ongoing commitment to strong corporate governance.  

    Yomi-Ajayi has over 30 years of experience in financial services, governance, regulatory engagement, and enterprise risk management. She previously served as an Executive Director of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) and was CEO for UBA’s International Business, as well as Country CEO for UBA America.

    She also sits on the boards of UBA United Kingdom (UK), the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) and is a member of the OECD Blue Dot Network Executive Consultation Group.

    Read Also: Shell Global CEO hails Tinubu, says leadership driving planned $20bn investment

    She was previously a member of the Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Committee of the US Export-Import Bank (US EXIM) and on the Board of Trustees of the Institute of International Banking (USA). 

    Sola holds a Masters in Business Administration degree from the Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (UK) and a member of the Association of MBAs. Additionally, she holds a Corporate Governance Certificate from the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania and, a Leadership Certificate from the Harvard Business School.

    Ufudo brings over 30 years of leadership experience across banking, investment, energy, and corporate transformation, having previously served as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer at Heirs Holdings.

    He served as President and Group CEO of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), where he led a successful turnaround and executed the landmark acquisition of the Ughelli Power Plant.

    He is aso the Founder and Chairman of Atiat Leasing Limited and Co-Founder and Chairman of LoanBook Limited.  Obinna holds advanced executive and postgraduate qualifications from the Wharton School (AMP), University of Reading (M.Sc., Chevening Scholar), and IESE Business School (Executive MBA). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria.     

    Commenting on the appointments, Heirs Holdings Founder and Group Chair, Tony O. Elumelu, said: “We are pleased to welcome Obinna Ufudo and Sola Yomi-Ajayi to the Board of Heirs Holdings. Both Obinna and Sola are role models for Africapitalism. Their depth of experience and track records will further support our leadership in Pan African proprietary investment; together, they bring highly relevant experience for our portfolio development.”

  • Heirs Holdings appoints Okpala Executive Director PGIS

    Heirs Holdings appoints Okpala Executive Director PGIS

    Heirs Holdings yesterday appointed Chidi Okpala as the Executive Director – Payments, Group Integration & Strategy (PGIS).

    He will oversee Heirs Holdings’ technology and healthcare business sectors and will also be responsible for driving synergies across the Group.

     He will additionally direct the HH Group’s strategy in the payment space, as HH leverages its financial services heritage and technology platform, to enter this rapidly evolving sector.

     Okpala brings over two decades of leadership experience spanning financial services, FinTech, telecommunications, and strategy consulting.

    His impressive career includes roles with global and African leading organisations, including Accenture, United Bank for Africa (UBA), and Bharti Airtel International.

    He was the Founder and CEO of Airtel Mobile Commerce Holdings (Airtel Money Africa), where he spearheaded the launch of Airtel Money, now one of Africa’s largest digital mobile wallets with over 40 million customers in 14 countries.

    Read Also: Heirs Holdings concludes directors’ annual summit in Abuja

    Before joining Heirs Holdings, he co-founded and served as CEO of Asante Financial Services Group, a FinTech firm empowering over 520,000 MSMEs across Africa with innovative digital financial solutions.

    Okpala holds a Sloan Master of Science in Management from the prestigious London Business School.

    Group Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony O. Elumelu, CFR, who announced the new appointments said, “Chidi embodies the qualities we value – excellence, innovation, and dedication. As we enter our fifteenth year, his leadership will assist, as we navigate the next phase of our journey at Heirs Holdings, of empowering Africa and creating transformative impact across the continent.”

    Heirs Holdings is a family-owned investment company committed to improving lives and transforming Africa. The Group invests in financial services, power, oil & gas, real estate, hospitality, and healthcare sectors across 24 countries worldwide.

  • Heirs Holdings concludes directors’ annual summit in Abuja

    Heirs Holdings concludes directors’ annual summit in Abuja

    Heirs Holdings (HH), a pan-African investment company, convened over 100 board members from across all HH investee companies, at the HH Group Directors’ Annual Summit.

    The HH Group Summit, held at the iconic Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja from June 13 – 16, drew on the experience of board members of investee companies from sectors where HH invests: healthcare, power, energy, technology, financial services, hospitality, and real estate.

    In attendance at the event are trustees of the Group’s philanthropy, the Tony Elumelu Foundation, which catalyses young entrepreneurs across Africa.  The convening provided the opportunity to reinforce the Group’s strong governance practices and identify opportunities for innovation and impact, as well as celebrating business achievements.

    Speaking at the HH Group Summit, Group Chairman, Heirs Holdings, Tony O. Elumelu, emphasised HH’s mandate to ‘build to last’ and to “build for impact”.

    He said: “Over the past decade, we have inculcated in our business the criticality of strong corporate governance practices. 

    We only invest for the long term, strategically and patiently.  These twin commitments are fundamental to our success; we are indeed building to last, redefining success in every sector we operate in, and demonstrating our purpose to improve lives and transform Africa”.

    The HH Group Summit culminated in a closing ceremony and dinner, hosting influential figures across Nigeria’s public and private sectors, including the Vice President of Nigeria, Senator Kashim Shettima, Federal Ministers, Ambassadors, policy makers and leaders of civil society.

    Read Also: Heirs Holdings inaugurates new subsidiary

    Speaking at the closing ceremony, Vice President Shettima remarked, “When the history of Nigeria and indeed Africa’s banking history and revolution will be written, one name will stand out – having carved a niche for itself and engraved its name on the walls of banking and Africa’s entrepreneurship.

    Tony Elumelu has become an enigma, a banking colossus, a power industrialist, and a force that cannot be ignored. He is one of our own who believed in Nigeria and threw his heart into it. He is a Nigerian economist, entrepreneur and indeed a philanthropist, who has given life meaning to millions of Nigerians and Africans.”

    The success and impact of Heirs Holdings reflects the philosophy of Africapitalism, the belief that the African private sector can change the course of African development, but that it must be committed to doing good and doing well.

    To date, HH investee companies employ over 40,000 people across 20 African countries, the United Kingdom, UAE, France, and the United States of America.

    The HH portfolio includes investments in Heirs Energies Limited, Africa’s leading indigenous-owned integrated energy company, that produces over 40,000 bpd, which is transforming resource-based value chains, making African resources work for Africa.

    Also in the list are Heirs Insurance Group, championing financial inclusion and leading the digital transformation of the insurance ecosystem in Nigeria, with a mission to democratise access to insurance; United Capital Plc, a leader in Investment Banking, Asset Management, Trusteeship, Securities Trading, Wealth Management, and Consumer Finance; Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate, Transcorp Group Plc, whose subsidiaries include Transcorp Power, one of the leading producers of electricity in West Africa and Transcorp Hotels Plc, Nigeria’s foremost hospitality brand, among others.

     The healthcare brands, include Avon HMO and Avon Medical, which are providing Nigerians with access to quality healthcare; Afriland Properties, a real estate investor and developer; technology brands, Redtech and Heirs Technologies, championing digital transformation; and the United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Africa’s Global Bank, which serves more than 45 million customers globally, across four continents.

  • Heirs Holdings, Afrexim Bank seal $600 million deal

    African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim) yesterday sealed a financing facility deal of $600 million with Heirs Holdings Group, a pan-African proprietary investment holding company.

    Heirs Holdings has significant investments across the continent in the financial services, resources, real estate and hospitality and power sectors. The facility will further support the Group’s power, oil and gas strategy, as it positions itself as an African leader in integrated natural resources. The signing ceremony took place at the ongoing Afrexim Intra-Africa Trade Conference in Cairo, Egypt.

    The proceeds of the facility will assist the Group’s vision of creating a dynamic resource based division, focused on ensuring that value creation occurs on the  continent and that value chains are developed, that directly benefit the broader African economy and consumer.

    President of Afrexim, Dr. Benedict Oramah, who signed on behalf of the bank, stated that the investment by Heirs Holdings would play a key role in addressing some of the fundamental challenges that have affected the power and energy sectors in Africa.

    He said: “A world class energy sector is fundamental to the sustainable growth of businesses in Africa. If we do not deal with these basic matters, growth of trade and exports will always be limited.”

    Also speaking on the deal,  the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Mr. Tony Elumelu, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Afrexim. The bank continues to play a critical role in the economic and social development of the continent. Together, we illustrate that Africa can create world class institutions, which are capable of successfully making the long-term investments necessary for Africa’s economic transformation and catalyse the enabling environment that will unleash Africa’s potential.”

  • Tony Elumelu plots shindig for mom

    CHAIRMAN of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa, Transcorp and founder of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, Tony Elumelu, is in a joyous mood. This is not unconnected with the fact that his mother, Suzanne, is 90 and it is worth celebrating.

    Elumelu on his Tweeter handle said he would not have been what he is today without his mother.

    Celebrating his mother on his Instagram page, the philanthropist revealed he and his family are counting down to the milestone.

    He wrote: ‘This is symbolic in many ways for me. I always talk about the need to empower women across Africa because I know firsthand the power of just one enterprising woman. Suffice it to say that I wouldn’t be the man I am today without my mom.’

  • Heirs Holdings appoints Marketing, Corporate Communications director

    Heirs Holdings has announced the appointment of Pelumi Fadairo as Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications.  Fadairo will be responsible for driving the Group’s strategic marketing objectives and co-ordinating brand management of its rapidly growing portfolio of pan-African investments in the power, financial services, oil and gas, hospitality and real estate, and healthcare sectors.

    Prior to joining Heirs Holdings, Fadairo was the CMO of BizzCloud, a Netherlands-based software company, where she designed and executed strategy and go-to-market plans. In this role, she led the internationalisation strategy for the brand and optimisation of customer acquisition, through improved customer experience. She has also provided consultancy for clients across the fintech, cloud services, cleantech and publishing sectors, combining her knowledge, experience and network across Africa, to develop market entry strategies.  Fadairo previously held senior positions at Dell, where she developed and executed marketing strategies across Europe and emerging markets.

    Commenting on the appointment, the Group CEO, Heirs Holdings, Emmanuel Nnorom stated, “Heirs Holdings is at an important growth stage, as we expand and deepen our investments within the twenty African countries where we operate. Pelumi’s experience in building strategies, managing complex stakeholder teams and executing marketing campaigns make her well qualified to take on this new role”.

    The Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony O. Elumelu, also commented on Fadairo’s role ” As we are increasingly impacting lives across Africa, through our investments and our commitment to growing social and economic wealth, the role of marketing and communications is increasingly important. Filling this critical role is a sign of our ongoing commitment to institutionalisation and our desire to ensure our unique African message is heard by audiences, globally and across our continent”.

  • Heirs Holdings appoints Nnorom, Group CEO

    The Board of Heirs Holdings has appointed  Emmanuel Nnorom as its Group Chief Executive Officer. Mr Nnorom previously served as chief executive of Heirs Holdings’ affiliate Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc and will join the Heirs Holdings’ Board, reporting directly to the Group Chairman, Tony Elumelu. The appointment will take effect from 1 June 2017.

    Mr Nnorom is expected to provide the day-to-day leadership at Heirs Holdings and be responsible for execution of group strategy for the proprietary investment firm, whose portfolio of investments includes power, oil and gas, financial services, hospitality, real estate and medical services, with a pan-African footprint of 20 countries.

    Mr. Elumelu, said: “Emmanuel is a highly respected member of the Heirs Holdings executive management team and his success at Transcorp, with its multi-sector portfolio and his broader knowledge of Africa and commitment to our pan-African vision, gained at UBA, make him uniquely qualified for the position.

    “Equally important, the creation of a CEO role at Heirs Holdings, demonstrates our continuing commitment to institutionalising effective corporate governance and ensuring that our investment in human capacity matches our ambitious growth strategy.”

    At Transcorp, Mr. Nnorom was responsible for the success of Transcorp businesses, including Transcorp Power, Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Transcorp Hotel Plc,  and Transcorp Energy. Prior to Transcorp, Mr. Nnorom had held senior positions at Heirs Holdings and had served as an Executive Director at UBA and Managing Director of UBA Africa, overseeing the Group’s African subsidiaries. He has also held the position of UBA Group Chief Operating Officer, with responsibility for information technology, operations, corporate services, marketing and corporate communications, customer service, UBA Properties, human resources and regulatory affairs.

  • Elumelu’s Heirs Holdings invest in American tech firm

    Heirs Holdings, a Lagos-based African proprietary investment company, has provided start-up soft funding to Wonderloop Incorporated, a California-based technological firm.  Heirs Holdings is owned by former United Bank for Africa (UBA) group managing director, Mr Tony Elumelu. Wonderloop is based in Mountain View, California and will launch fully in 2015.

    The seed funding will support the development and expansion of Wonderloop’s custom video-profile platform. It will also enable the Silicon Valley start-up to conduct experimentation and prototype development to accelerate the global adoption of the video platform. The investment will be disbursed as a convertible loan directly to Wonderloop.

    Wonderloop is the world’s first video-profile identity platform. The cutting edge iPhone app will revolutionize the way people connect through short 10 to 15 second video-profiles, creating real-world connections on mobile devices. The video-profile replaces the static images and bios on traditional social networks and provides users with more accurate impressions of users.

    Commenting on the investment, chairman, Heirs Holdings, Mr. Tony Elumelu, described Wonderloop as a high-potential firm which should be supported to achieve its aims.

    “I am excited about Wonderloop’s vision of giving everyone in the world an opportunity to be seen through this dynamic cutting edge video-profile system,” Elumelu said.

    According to him, Heirs Holdings will bring its experience investing in American technological firms to bear on the development of Africa’s equivalent of the Silicon Valley.

    “We see this as an investment in a high potential tech start-up, similar to what we did previously with Planet Labs. These are the kinds of investments that create a simpler and more connected world.  We want to bring lessons learnt from our investments in the Silicon Valley tech space to the African tech entrepreneurs we are grooming,” Elumelu said.

    Founder, Wonderloop Inc, Hanna Aase, said the firm’s video-profile platform will impact profoundly on social and economic interactions.

    “If we can meet each person in the world with a click of a button, it changes the way we connect, hire, invest and give. We do introductions for the people we know, but what if we could replicate that experience with everyone in the world? If we can see anyone, anywhere in the world, we will feel we have met and can be comfortable hiring, investing, giving and more, virtually,” Aase said.

    Aase created the Wonderloop app after being inspired by Oprah’s mission of connecting and giving to people all around the world and wanted to bring it to the mobile space. Her goal is to give everyone the power to meet life-changing people using the integrated search engine.

  • Seadrill, Heirs Holdings launch deepwater drillship for Total

    Seadrill, Heirs Holdings launch deepwater drillship for Total

    The Chairman of Heirs Holdings, an African investment Company, Tony O. Elumelu, has commissioned the sail away of Seadrill Nigeria Limited’s sixth-generation drill ship christened, ‘West Jupiter.’

    This initiative is part of the global partnership between Heirs Holdings and Seadrill Nigeria Limited. The West Jupiter is the latest addition to the Total Upstream Nigeria Limited (Total) fleet of ultra-deep water vessels operating in Nigerian waters.

    The submersible deepwater drill rig built by Samsung Heavy Industries in Korea for Seadrill Nigeria, has the capacity to operate in 12,000 feet of water. The $1.1 billion contract to operate the ship for an initial five-year period, was awarded to Seadrill Nigeria by Total as part of the Egina deepwater project.

    Heirs Holdings is a joint venture partner and significant equity investor in Seadrill Nigeria. The commissioning is a milestone in Nigeria’s offshore sector, and aligns with the government’s policy of deepening indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry.

    During the official sail away ceremony in the Samsung Hotel in Geoje, South Korea, Elumelu,  Chairman of the Board of Seadrill Nigeria: “The partnership between Heirs Holdings and Seadrill is an important part of our strategy of investing in Africa’s long-term economic development and today, we celebrate an inspiring example of global collaboration.”

    “The vessel we are flagging off was built in South Korea by Samsung and will be operated by a Nigerian crew for a French customer, developing one of Nigeria’s oil fields. It represents a genuine commitment to knowledge sharing and indigenous participation in Nigeria’s resource sector and is a milestone that we can all be proud of.”

    Seadrill’s Senior Vice President for Middle East and Africa, Eduardo Antonello said: “In Brazil, we have 80 per cent local staff in the field and I would like for us to achieve the same in Angola and in Nigeria. We are heading to sixty percent in Nigeria, but the only way to get that number up to eighty to eighty-five per cent is to train people. We and our partners, Heirs Holdings, are very keen on investing in training local crews; and long term contracts, like Total’s, give us just the opportunity to do that.”

    The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Ernest Nwapa, emphasized the Nigerian government’s growing insistence that local-international partnerships become the model for engagement in the Nigerian oil industry.

  • Heirs Holdings to increase power supply to 1000mw

    The Tony Elumelu’s pan-African investment vehicle, Heirs Holdings, one of the investors that bought the privatised successor companies unbundled from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), has said it will generate  a quarter of Nigeria’s power consumption needs in the next five years.

    Heirs Holdings’ interests in the power sector include the Transcorp Ughelli Power, a thermal power  plant, which it acquired last year under the privatisation programme of the Federal Government.

    A senior official of the company, who told The Nation about Heirs Holdings’ plan to embark on mass power generation through the expansion of the Transcorp Ughelli Power, said the industry is a catalytic sector, and the development of the country and that the continent cannot happen without fixing it.

    He described the United States’ Power Africa Initiative as an amazing opportunity to democratise access to power for Africans, adding that Heirs Holdings’ $2.5 billion investment and commitment to the initiative reflects how excited the management of the company is about it.

    The administration, he noted, made a bold decision when it decided to effect changes envisaged by the Power Sector Reform Act that had been on the books since 2005.

    The source noted that the government’s bold step was reinforced during President Barack Obama’s last visit to Africa. We felt more strongly than ever, the need to help power Africa, the official added.

    The source said: “Our experience so far at Ughelli power plant is a testimony to the size of the opportunity. Our team has taken that plant from 150MW capacity, when we took over in November 2013, to 450MW today; we expect it to increase to 700MW by October and to achieve 1000MW by the second quarter of 2015. At that rate, we’ll be contributing 20 per cent of Nigeria’s total power generation.”

    Furthermore, he said, the firm was working on a Greenfield project that would expand the capacity of Ughelli by 1000MW in the next five years and that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the General Electric (GE) and Symbion Power to facilitate the deal.

    The official identified unreliable transmission infrastructure, access to uninterrupted gas supply and timely settlement of invoiced payments as three main challenges to the power sector.

    He said: “In Nigeria, one of the biggest challenges to power generation is transmission and in fact, while Ughelli Power Plant generated at full capacity for the first time in July, we’ve been asked to scale down generation because of the outdated transmission system; for every 100MW generated and sent to transmission company, 40 per cent is lost, partly due to this infrastructure issue.”

    While regulation is not a key challenge, the official said it was an issue in the sector that if addressed, could speed up growth.

    “We need pragmatic regulation that recognises that in Nigeria, the sector is nascent and so policies must be designed to encourage growth. In fairness, the Federal Government is confronting these challenges head on,” he added.