Access Holdings, Coronation Insurance seal N4.8bn in private deal rooms

The recent off-market transactions involving Access Holdings Plc and Coronation Insurance Plc represent a significant move within the Nigerian financial ecosystem, likely linked to the ongoing consolidation and bancassurance partnership between both entities.

A total of 183,110,525 units of Access Holdings Plc and 21,003,544 units of Coronation Insurance Plc were excuted as off-market trades on Tuesday March 24 in two deals. The trades were negotiated cross-deals with Coronation Securities Limited on both the buy and sell sides.

Large off-market trades often serve as a quiet way for major stakeholders to realign their interests without triggering the volatility of the open market.

Given the historical and strategic ties between the leadership of Access Holdings Plc and the Coronation Group, this may relate to a consolidation of holdings.

Coronation Securities Limited acting as the broker on both sides suggests a high degree of internal coordination.

The combined value of these trades is roughly N4.8 billion, moving significant volume through Coronation Securities Limited as the unified broker.

Access Holdings Plc: 183,110,525 units (estimated value: N4.74 billion). Coronation Insurance Plc: 21,003,544 units (estimated value: N65.1 million).

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Access Holdings recently crossed the N500 billion capital requirement hurdle set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Large block trades like this often follow major capital raises as institutional investors or connected persons align their long-term positions.

This is a significant volume of activity for a single trading day, particularly given the negotiated cross-deal nature of the transactions.

Access Holdings has recently seen its share price hovering around the N25– N26.50 range, while Coronation Insurance has traded between N3.11 and N3.50.

As at 1.30 pm on Tuesday, Access Holdings Plc led the market’s volume chart with 258,207,088 units traded worth N5.798 billion. The stock rose to N26.1 from day-open level of N26. Coronation Insurance stock price rose to N3.2 as at 1.30 pm on Tuesday from preceding day’s N3.1 per share.

Executing these as off-market trades indicates that the buyer and seller were pre-arranged, likely for strategic portfolio rebalancing or a block divestment, rather than reflecting general retail sentiment on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX).

Though the transactions were done at market prices on the floor, the investors will settle themselves off market as per discount.

Since these were off-market cross-deals, they don’t immediately fluctuate the live ticker price in the same way open-market sell-offs would. However, they significantly boost the daily value of trades for the sector.

Iheanyi Nwachukwu

Iheanyi Nwachukwu, is a creative content writer with almost two decades journalism experience writing on banking, finance, capital markets, and tax. The multiple awards winning journalist is Assistant Editor, BusinessDay. Iheanyi holds BSc Degree in Economics from Imo State University; Master of Science (MSc) Degree in Management from University of Lagos. Iheanyi has attended several work-related trainings including (i) Advanced Writing and Reporting Skills (Pan African University, Lagos); (ii) News Agency Journalism (Indian Institute of Mass Communication {IIMC}, New Delhi, India); and (iii) Capital Markets Development and Regulations (International Law Institute {ILI} of Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA). Other trainings Iheanyi attended include: Economic/Political Risk Analysis (By Thomson Reuters Foundation); International Financial Journalism (IFJ) (By PMA Media Training, UK); Effective Business Writing Skills (By Phillips Consulting); Reporting on Corporate Governance (By International Finance Corporation (IFC) & Thomson Reuters Foundation UK); etc. In addition, he has participated in high-level economy & markets events in Dubai, South Africa, Morocco, and other African countries like Zambia, Ghana and Gambia.