Honeywell Group acquires stakes in the Sheraton and Federal Palace Hotels of Nigeria
Honeywell Group, the investment holding company, which was founded by Nigerian billionaire Oba Otudeko, has acquired a 14 percent stake in Ikeja Hotel.
Ikeja Hotel is the Nigerian Stock Exchange-listed hospitality company that owns Sheraton Lagos Hotel, Sheraton Abuja Hotel and Towers as well as the Federal Palace Hotels and Casino.
The acquisition was accomplished in a transaction valued at approximately USD 9.6 million (13.2 billion Nairas), based on the company’s share price at the time of disclosure.
The purchase, recently reported by both TheCable and Vanguard, is the latest significant investment by Honeywell Group following its exit from the flour milling sector through the sale of Honeywell Flour Mills to Flour Mills of Nigeria in 2022, one of the largest capital market transactions in Nigerian history that year.
The group has since been redeploying capital across real estate, energy, infrastructure and technology, and the Ikeja Hotel stake signals renewed interest in Nigeria’s hospitality sector from one of its most storied investor-founders.
Honeywell Group’s Chief Finance Officer, Kemi Adeoye has been appointed as a non-executive director of Ikeja Hotels Plc as part of the transaction, a standard governance arrangement that accompanies significant shareholding positions in listed Nigerian companies and that gives Honeywell a formal voice in the hotel company’s boardroom decisions.
The Ikeja Hotel stake acquisition carries a personal dimension for Otudeko.
Honeywell Group already holds the Radisson Blu Anchorage Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos, the first Radisson Blu property to open in West Africa, as one of its existing hospitality assets.
Adding a significant position in Ikeja Hotel, which operates three of Nigeria’s most recognisable five-star hotels, extends that hospitality footprint substantially while positioning Honeywell as a major institutional voice in the governance of the listed company.
Oba Otudeko, 82, founded Honeywell Group in 1972 as a food commodities trading company and has built it over five decades into one of Nigeria’s most diversified investment holding companies.
He served as Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and FBN Holdings from 1997 to 2021, a 24-year tenure that made him one of the most influential chairmen in Nigerian banking history before his exit following a shareholder dispute that saw Femi Otedola emerge as the bank’s dominant individual investor.
His departure from the bank’s chairmanship ended one of the most consequential governance battles in Nigerian financial history, but Otudeko has continued to operate Honeywell Group actively and the Ikeja Hotel acquisition is the clearest indication yet of continued investment appetite.