NBET Finance Company: The Sankore Connection and Two-Person Board Running The State-Backed SPV

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NBET Finance Company PLC — a special purpose vehicle created solely to clean up years of unpaid electricity bills — opened book-building on August 3 for a ₦728.98 billion bond, split into a ₦400 billion cash tranche and a ₦328.98 billion non-cash tranche paid directly to generation companies (GenCos) in lieu of overdue invoices.

The SPV’s own governance is thin by design.

Its two directors are Mrs. Titilope Temitayo Odunfa-Adeoye — Founder and Group CEO of Sankore Investments, with prior stints at Goldman Sachs, KPMG, PwC, and Zenith Capital, a Harvard MBA and a Howard University BBA earned summa cum laude — and Mr. Olufemi Folajimi Akinwale, Sankore’s SVP for Client Engagement, who has advised on trust portfolios exceeding ₦25 billion in assets under management and led partnerships and M&A transactions worth more than ₦50 billion.

Both are affiliated with Sankore Securities Limited, the entity holding the SPV’s shares in trust for NBET.

The Sponsor, Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, is wholly government-owned — 80% by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, 20% by Ministry of Finance Incorporated — and has served as the central counterparty between GenCos and DisCos since it commenced operations in 2011 under the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005.

Its board is chaired by H.E. Dr. Sulaiman Muhammad Argungu, OFR, with Akin Odeyemi, FCA as Managing Director/CEO.

Notably, NBET’s own trading license — renewed by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission for a shortened three-year term in 2021 rather than the customary ten — is being progressively wound down in favor of bilateral trading between GenCos and DisCos, a reform NERC formally ordered in July 2024 to reduce the Federal Government’s fiscal exposure to future revenue shortfalls.

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