Table of Contents
Key Points
- GTCO lists on London Stock Exchange, becoming the first West African financial institution to trade on the LSE’s main market.
- GTCO raises $105 million via discounted public offering as part of plan to meet Nigeria’s new bank capital requirements.
- Agbaje expands GTCO’s footprint, guiding growth into pensions, asset management, and payments despite recent profit decline.
Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc (GTCO), led by Nigerian banker Segun Agbaje, has reached a new milestone with a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). With this move, GTCO becomes the first West African financial lender to trade on the LSE’s main market—a key move that broadens its global investor reach and raises its international profile.
GTCO lists shares on LSE
The listing covers over 36.4 billion ordinary shares, already quoted on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), now admitted under the LSE’s international commercial companies category. The lender’s shares—valued at more than N3 trillion ($1.96 billion)—are joining a select group of Nigerian firms on the London bourse, including Airtel Africa and Seplat Energy. “This marks a significant step in our long-term growth strategy,” GTCO said in a statement.
Before this listing, GTCO shares were only accessible in London through Global Depository Receipts (GDRs), which saw limited trading. To encourage broader participation and better liquidity, the banking group phased out the GDR program earlier this year and allowed investors to swap each GDR for 50 ordinary shares. It has also updated its trading symbol from “GTHC” to “GTCO” to create consistency across its trading platforms.
GTCO raises $105 million to boost capital
This move is part of GTCO’s broader plan to raise fresh capital and meet the Central Bank of Nigeria’s new minimum capital requirements for banks with international licenses. In the past few months, the financial services group has taken visible steps to strengthen its balance sheet.
Just last week, GTCO raised $105 million from a public offering priced at N70 per share—a 15 percent discount on the day’s opening price in Lagos. The offer drew strong interest from institutional investors and pushed the group closer to its capital target of N500 billion ($327 million) by March 2026.
That offering followed an earlier round in January, when the group raised N209 billion ($136.7 million) from retail investors in Nigeria. Taken together, both transactions reflect a deliberate strategy to tap funding from both local and global markets.
Agbaje leads GTCO’s steady evolution
While the group’s latest quarterly results show a 43.5 percent drop in profit—N258.03 billion ($168.8 million) in Q1 2025, down from N457.02 billion ($299 million) a year earlier—GTCO remains focused on long-term growth. The decline was largely driven by mark-to-market losses, not operational weakness.
Under Agbaje’s leadership, the group has steadily expanded beyond traditional banking, building a broader portfolio that includes pensions, asset management, and digital payments. Agbaje, who owns a 0.14 percent stake in the company, continues to guide GTCO’s evolution with an eye on both regional growth and global relevance.