Tony Elumelu’s investment vehicle, Heirs Holdings, acquired a 20.07% stake in Seplat Energy — 120.4 million shares — from French energy company Maurel & Prom in a transaction that closed on 30 December 2025, at £3.05 per share, valuing the deal at approximately $496–500 million. Eight months on, that stake is worth more than $1 billion, according to Seplat’s current share price of ₦11,200.60 on the Nigerian Exchange and £6.47 on the London Stock Exchange — a gain of over 100% on the original investment.
How the Value Moved
The appreciation has not been a single event but a steady climb through 2026. Seplat closed 2025 at ₦5,809 per share. By March 2026 it had moved above ₦9,000, and on 14 April it became the first company in the Nigerian Exchange’s history to close above ₦10,000 per share, at ₦10,450. That milestone alone had already pushed the value of Elumelu’s stake to an estimated $934–989 million by late April — even before the share price continued climbing through the second and third quarters to push the position past the $1 billion mark by mid-August.
Earlier in the year, the pace of the gain was more modest but still notable: by 21 February 2026, less than two months after the deal closed, the stake had generated a paper gain of roughly $186.6 million as Seplat’s share price rose to 420 pence from the 305 pence Heirs Energies paid in December. The subsequent months saw that gain roughly triple.
What’s Driving It
The rally is underpinned by genuine operating performance, not sentiment alone. Seplat’s full-year 2025 revenue rose 144% to $2.73 billion, with adjusted EBITDA up 137% to $1.28 billion. That momentum carried into 2026: in the first half of the year, revenue reached ₦2.50 trillion and profit before tax rose 74% to ₦790.4 billion, while average working-interest production climbed to 139,509 barrels of oil equivalent per day, up from 134,492 a year earlier. Seplat’s total market capitalisation now stands at approximately $5.24 billion.
The timing of the original acquisition also matters. Heirs Energies closed the Seplat stake purchase just two weeks after securing a $750 million financing facility from Afreximbank — capital that has since supported the operational growth now showing up in Seplat’s production and revenue numbers.
Governance Is Catching Up to Ownership
Elumelu joined Seplat’s board as a non-executive director on 22 January 2026 and is expected to become Chairman from 1 January 2027, succeeding Senator Udoma Udo Udoma. That transition sits alongside the CEO handover to Effiong Okon on 1 August 2026 — meaning that by the time Elumelu formally takes the chair, Heirs will have converted a capital position into full governance control at Nigeria’s largest indigenous oil and gas producer, with the market having already rewarded that ownership with a doubled valuation along the way.
What This Means in Practice
First, the gain is unrealised. Nothing has been sold, and the $1 billion figure moves with Seplat’s share price — a downturn in oil prices, a production setback, or a broader NGX correction could erode it as quickly as it built. The value of the position depends entirely on Seplat continuing to convert its enlarged asset base — including its OML 17 operations — into sustained earnings.
Second, this is now one of the clearest reference points in Nigeria for what a well-timed, well-capitalised indigenous acquisition of a divesting IOC-linked asset can return in under a year — a data point every other conglomerate weighing a similar stake purchase in the sector will be citing.
Third, it strengthens Elumelu’s position heading into the Seplat chairmanship, giving Nigeria’s largest indigenous oil producer a controlling shareholder whose personal financial outcome is now directly and visibly tied to the company’s continued performance.
A $500 million stake purchase eight months ago is now a billion-dollar position on paper. Whether it becomes a billion-dollar position in fact depends on what Seplat does next under Elumelu’s board — and on oil markets neither he nor Seplat control.