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With Funsho Arogundade
Nigerian-born international investor, Michael J. Prest, is one very private man who actually detests being put on the spotlight. Despite his rich reputation as an international oil dealer, Prest is a very private person living his best life purely on his terms and within a global footprint. The enigmatic businessman tries so hard to avoid any manner of controversies. Yet, the founder of Petrodel Resources keeps miring a series of legal controversies.
Couple of years ago, Prest —a protégée of the late King of Oil, Marc Rich— was embroiled in a very serious tiff with the financial regulators in the Caribbean Island of Nevis where the Nigerian-born magnate has had a home since 1996. As a seasoned strategic investor and one of the largest employers of the small Idyllic Caribbean Island, the Delta State-born Prest has ensured he makes his ways pure in all his dealings. But in June 2021, the Island’s financial regulators had attempted to restrict Prest’s company, Petrodel, and had imposed fines on the Bank of Nevis International Limited (BONI), an international financial powerhouse offering private and wealth management services owned largely by Prest. The legal action led his lawyers to argue that the regulators had the power to do so and were acting with impunity. A Judge later handed down a ruling in favour of Prest, which sent seismic shock in the financial services industry in the Caribbean Island. Just as he was savoring the success of that Judicial Review, another controversy was brewing close to home in Africa: this time around, Zambia.
In 2021, Prest had identified the landlocked Southern African nation as a strategic gateway nation, citing its geographic position and access to a regional market of hundreds of millions. Prest, through his bank, BONI, acquired a 24.8 per cent stake in Investrust Bank Plc through a licensed broker on the Lusaka Securities Exchange. But for over three years, he was left in limbo, neither formally recognised as a shareholder nor definitively rejected, with the Bank of Zambia later putting the bank into liquidation. For Prest, it was a tragic story and an own goal for Zambia.
Despite denying recognition, the authorities did not refund the capital invested, leaving his bank, BONI to bear the economic loss of a shareholder while being denied governance rights. He challenged the compulsory liquidation and sale of Investrust’s assets. But in another landmark courtroom victory, Prest triumphed after a Zambia Court decisively dismissed two procedural applications filed by Bank of Zambia in the high-stakes dispute over the liquidation. The twin rulings underscore his strategic acumen in pursuing investor protection through legal channels. On a fair resolution, Prest was unequivocal on a return on investment payment for damages in the neighbourhood of $40 million to cover both the investment and the opportunity cost to the investor in this situation.
