Atuche denies selling Caverton helicopter 820 million shares

The former Managing Director of Bank PHB (now Keystone Bank), Mr Francis Atuche, on Wednesday denied  selling  820 million units of Afribank Plc shares belonging to  Caverton Helicopters Limited without authorisation.
Atuche made this assertion through his counsel, Chief Anthony Idigbe (SAN) at the resumed hearing of his ongoing trial before Justice Adeniyi Onigbanjo of a Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja.
According to him, the  shares was purchased in line with the strategic plan by Bank PHB to take over Afribank and Caverton Helicopters was helping the bank to achieve this objective.
Idigbe made the clarification while cross-examining the  Managing Director of Caverton Helicopters Ltd, Mr Sola Falola, who had earlier told  the court that Bank PHB granted his company a N2.7 billion loan to purchase the shares.
Falola had informed the court that sometime in September 2008, he discovered that the shares had been sold by the bank for a total sum of N6.8 billion.
“We were not informed and to make things worse, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) published our name as one of the banks indebted to Bank PHB to the tune of N2.18 billion.
“So we wrote to the bank demanding for our statement of account but we have not been given the statement till date”.
He added that the bank should have paid his company N4.1 billion as premium following the N6.8 billion sales.
But Chief Idigbe said the owner of the company, Mr Remi Makanjuola, had on August 14, 2006, entered an agreement with the bank on the said transaction.
According to him, the terms of the offer document clearly stated that the title of the shares would be in the name of Bank PHB, reiterating that the purchase of the shares was actually a strategic plan by Bank PHB to take over Afribank and Caverton Helicopters was the vehicle the bank employed to achieve this objective.
“The loan granted to the company was a margin loan and the standard procedure in such a non-recourse transaction is that the shares can be sold without notifying them”.
According to him, since Caverton Helicopters did not invest any money in the transaction, the company was wrong to have petitioned the EFCC in the first place.
Idigbe said a total of 320 million units of Afribank shares were sold by the bank during the period, adding that the bank was unable to sell the remaining 500 million units.