Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Access Bank Plc, Roosevelt Ogbonna, has reportedly acquired a mansion in London, whose value was put at ₦30 Billion.
The mansion, located on a street in Hampstead neighbourhood, nicknamed “Billionaires’ Row”, marked a rare transaction in the city’s beleaguered luxury housing market, Bloomberg reports.
According to the report, on Wednesday, the luxury mansion acquired by Ogbonna was valued at £15 million ($20 million), approximately ₦30 billion.
Ogbonna, who has been the CEO of Access Bank Plc, Nigeria’s largest bank by assets for over three years, purchased the sprawling mansion in August, according to a UK filing.
The house, which has a spa and an entertainment suite, was listed for £17 million as recently as 2021, according to London’s City AM newspaper.
A representative of Ogbonna, who’s one of Nigeria’s well-known bankers, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The deal, one of London’s most expensive this summer, is the latest example of high-end homes being sold at steep discounts in the UK capital this year.
This is coming after stamp duty increases and the abolition of a preferential tax status enjoyed by ultra-rich foreign residents hammered demand.
There were 45 per cent more price reductions on £5 million-plus properties between January and May than the same period last year, data from researcher, LonRes, show.
Still, a handful of mega-deals defied the slump this year, including several transactions involving wealthy foreigners.
A member of the multi-billionaire family behind Thomson Reuters Corp. agreed to buy a high-end London apartment for about £25 million earlier this year.
Similarly, Silicon Valley investor, Matt Cohler, bought a detached house in Notting Hill for roughly £22 million at the end of April.
Ogbonna leads Access Bank Plc, which is on an ambitious five-year growth plan that seeks to double the share of assets outside its home market by 2027.
Access Bank Plc ranks among Africa’s five biggest banks. It has operations in about 24 countries, including the United Arab Emirates and the UK, servicing more than 63 million customers in three continents.
Roosevelt Ogbonna resigned as a non-executive director of the lender’s parent company, Access Holdings Plc, in August, but remains the CEO of the bank.
