The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has delisted AG Leventis (Nigeria) Plc, closing more than four decades of public listing at the stock market. The delisting yesterday was due to a request for voluntary delisting after AG Leventis’ core investors pushed through a plan to buy out minority shareholders.

The Leventis family, which remains the majority core investor in the conglomerate with some 88 per cent controlling shareholding, had launched a process and succeeded in buying out minority shareholders in order to implement a turnaround programme.

AG Leventis had some 30,000 minority shareholders. One of Nigeria’s oldest and largest conglomerates, AG Leventis was incorporated in Nigeria as a private limited liability company in 1952 and was converted to a public limited liability company and listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1978.

At the last count, the AG Leventis Group consists of eight subsidiaries, three associates and three Joint Ventures, all of which were incorporated in Nigeria. The group’s operations span the wide gamut of the economy from foods and beverages to automobile, real estate, hotel, general trade and merchandise.