Nigeria’s second-richest billionaire, Abdul Samad Rabiu, has seen the market value of his stake in his agro-allied company BUA Foods fall by more than N82.64 billion ($199 million) in the past two months, as shares in the company retreat from record highs.
BUA Foods, the unified food business division of the Nigeria-based BUA Group, covers the activities of BUA Sugar Refinery Limited, BUA Oil Mills Limited, IRS Flour, IRS Pasta and BUA Rice Limited.
Rabiu, the chairman of BUA Group, owns 99.81 percent of the agro-allied company, a position that has added $2.65 billion to his fortune since the shares were successfully listed on Jan. 5.
As of press time, BUA Foods shares were trading at N61.4 ($0.149), unchanged from their opening price on the Nigerian Exchange, as selling and buying forces were evenly balanced.
According to data retrieved from the local bourse over the past four weeks, BUA Foods is the 95th most-traded stock on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, with a total volume of 1.77 million shares traded in 480 transactions worth N105 million ($252,832).
The market price of the company’s shares has recently declined from N66 ($0.159) on Jan. 14 to N61.4 ($0.149) on March 8, resulting in a seven-percent gain for the company’s shareholders, as investors sell down stakes in the unified food business sector.
As a result of the price reduction, the market value of Rabiu’s stake has dropped from N1.185 trillion ($2.86 billion) at the start of business and trading on Jan. 14 to N1.1 trillion ($2.66 billion) at the time of writing.
This equates to a total loss of N82.64 billion ($199 million) for the billionaire businessman in the past 53 days.
Despite the recent fall in the market value of his stock, Rabiu remains Nigeria’s second-richest man, with a net worth of $7.2 billion.
Telecom billionaire Mike Adenuga, whose net worth is now valued at $7 billion, trails closely behind.
