Companies · Oando Plc

Shareholders gave Wale Tinubu's board a blank check for a listing with no address yet

Oando's shareholders gathered virtually on Thursday, September 17, for the company's 47th annual general meeting. They gave the board something it didn't have before. The freedom to list Oando's shares on any stock exchange in the world.

The resolution, proposed in the AGM notice and passed on the day, authorised "the Directors to approve and effect the listing of the Company's shares on other stock exchange(s) as they may deem fit, including cross-border listings, subject to obtaining any regulatory approvals required under applicable law." No exchange was named. No timetable was set.

Oando itself framed the request beforehand as a move to "enhance stock liquidity, optimise shareholder value, and provide seamless access for international investors as the energy group scales its operations." That's the stated purpose. What it doesn't answer is why the company's existing secondary listing isn't enough. In 2005, under Wale Tinubu, Oando became the first African business to complete a cross-border inward listing, adding Johannesburg to its primary listing on the Nigerian Exchange. A listing on a larger exchange, market watchers noted, could make Oando shares easier to reach through international brokers and let investors hold the stock in a currency other than the naira, though it would also mean stricter disclosure and reporting requirements. Nothing changes for existing shareholders today. Shares still trade in Lagos and Johannesburg exactly as they did before the vote.

The backdrop is a balance sheet in the middle of a turnaround, but not yet a clean one. In its first half 2026 results, the company reported gross profit up 331 percent year on year to N101.2 billion, and an operating loss of N158.7 billion in the same period last year had flipped to an operating profit of N127.8 billion. Revenue grew 19.9 percent to N2.063 trillion, driven by a 28.7 percent rise in exploration and production revenue as crude prices firmed. The company pointed to the asset base built around OMLs 60 to 63, acquired when Tinubu bought Nigerian Agip Oil Company from Eni in 2024, as the reason the upstream side is now "converting into earnings and cash rather than simply adding volume." Supply and trading still drove most of the business, 83.2 percent of external revenue, with exploration and production contributing the rest.

Oando has also been tightening, not just growing. It agreed to sell its 95 percent interest in Oando Production and Development Company for $48.45 million, and closed the half with N544.9 billion in cash, more than double the N194.2 billion it held a year earlier. At the AGM itself, Tinubu told shareholders the company would keep prioritising operational control. "Operational control gives us execution capacity and creates value," he said, describing sharper accountability and performance management as the next phase of the integration process.

None of that shows up yet in what the market is willing to pay. Oando's shares closed flat at N34 the same week the resolution passed, putting the company's market capitalisation at roughly N422.7 billion, based on its 12.431 billion outstanding shares, more than 40 percent below its 52-week high of N56.80. Its shareholders' equity remained negative by N530.4 billion. Shareholders also used the meeting to approve a separate amendment letting Oando move into digital assets and distributed-ledger business, though no specific venture, budget or timeline accompanied that authorisation.

Oando's board can now, on paper, take the company's shares to almost any exchange on earth. What it did on September 17 was clear a legal path, not announce a destination, or explain why the path it already has, through Johannesburg, isn't the one it wants to walk again.