A businessman lost everything but was able to bounce back as a result of proceeds of investment he grudgingly did and never expected much in terms of returns.
The story of the businessman was narrated by a staff of Afrinvest Securities Limited, Paul, who was actually the one that encouraged the man to make the investment. Narrating the story in an email to clients’ of the company, Paul said:
I had a client back in the days of IPOs (short for Initial Public Offering. It’s the first time a company is offering its shares to the public).
He was a business tycoon, and bank managers often sought his counsel.
During the sale of Zenith and GTBank IPOs back in the years 2007 and 2008, I approached him to invest. It wasn’t easy to reach him. For one thing, he was a busy man. And when I finally had his audience, convincing him to invest in the shares was a herculean task.
After much back and forth, he eventually invested in Zenith and GTbank, 1 million units each at 7-8 naira respectively. We became good friends.
He later got his share certificates, laminated and dumped them somewhere in his office. All efforts to get him to dematerialize those certificates with me (that is, to lodge them in electronic format) were abortive.
Years later, disaster struck. It was sad. His warehouse got burnt. All goods, documents, and cheque books, including the laminated share certificates, were destroyed. He lost everything.
In the wake of this, the banks came knocking. They had to recover their loan. What was left from the fire was sold off to settle the bank. And that was how a big man was reduced to nothing.
One day, I paid him a visit and that was when he narrated the sad ordeal. I asked him about those companies’ shares certificates he bought. He replied that they all got burnt. I told him we could do something about it.
I got all the necessary information from him to enable us to recover the shares for him. The team and I got down to work. After a month plus, all were dematerialized into his CSCS account statement with the following balances:
Zenith bank (1m units) > N31 million naira
Gtbank (1m units) > N33million naira
Total > N64m naira (excluding the bonuses o)
When I sent him the CSCS statement, he couldn’t believe his eyes. How does one move from having nothing to having over N60 million?
He was overwhelmed with it all. He was the one that even recounted the stress he put me through when I was trying to convince him to invest in the shares. He kept thanking me. He still refers to me as “Messiah” till this day. Lol!
He vowed never to ignore equity trading or capital market investments again after that day. The investment that restored his lost glory. Since then, he has been a regular investor in the capital market. On an average, he invests N2M weekly.
Stories like this give me hope. It may not always be all rosy with investments, especially with equities where prices can go up and down without notice, but it can really be a life saver.
My new client that visited the office on Friday came for a similar purpose—to recover her old shares. She told me a story of how her dad bought those shares for her when she was little. The shares were the reason she was able to go to school abroad. They sold a portion of it then to pay her fees. She is back to track the remaining portion.
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