Abbey Bank Plc's shares on the NGX jumped from 10.15 billion to 36.72 billion this week. Not through a stock split. Through a private placement.
On September 17, NGX Regulation confirmed the listing of 26,562,647,265 new shares, sold at 50 kobo par value for N2.43 each raising roughly N64.55 billion. The bank's issued share capital is now 3.6 times what it was before: a 261.6% increase in a single filing.
This was months in the making. At its AGM on May 25, shareholders approved the N64.55 billion private placement outright, and separately authorised the board to raise up to N100 billion more through other equity and debt instruments — together, a N164.5 billion capital mandate. Chairman Samuel Oni framed it as central to the bank's push to convert from a mortgage bank into a regional commercial bank, a conversion the CBN had approved by early June.
That explains the reason better than the listing notice alone does. Regional commercial banking requires more capital than mortgage banking, and the bank's balance sheet was already stretching to match. According to interim results summaries, total assets grew 46.85% to N243.52 billion in the first half of 2026, with customer deposits up 82.90% to N145.64 billion. Growth like that needs equity behind it, not just deposits.
For existing shareholders, the flip side is dilution. Anyone who didn't buy into the placement now owns a smaller slice of a share pool more than triple its old size — the cost of the bank's conversion ambitions, whether or not they participated.
It remains to be seen what the bank's commercial banking transition delivers next.