Mr Eazi buys into Ghanaian drug maker after mother’s death

Mr Eazi has bought a 17.31 percent stake in Intravenous Infusions Plc, a Ghanaian pharmaceutical manufacturer, and says he did it because of what he saw in hospitals during the three years his mother was dying.

Zagadat Capital GH Ltd, the investment firm he founded in 2017 and where he serves as chief investment officer, bought 47,514,775 shares on the floor of the Ghana Alternative Exchange, accumulating the position through a series of open-market trades brokered by Laurus Africa Securities.

The purchase puts the Nigerian musician, whose businesses already span music distribution, gaming and payments, onto the share register of a company that makes intravenous fluids for hospitals across West Africa.

When he bought

Zagadat filed its substantial shareholding notification on Monday, May 18, and the Ghana Stock Exchange published it four days later.

That date marks the disclosure rather than the purchase. Ghanaian law compels an investor to file only once a holding crosses a set threshold, so the buying happened before May 18, accumulated across multiple trades over an unspecified period. Neither Zagadat nor the exchange has published the individual trade dates or what the firm paid.

What is on the record is when the accumulation started. The buying began immediately after Intravenous Infusions published its 2025 annual report.

Intravenous Infusions has 274,410,000 shares in issue and traded at 8 pesewas on May 19, the day after the notification, against a 52-week low of 4 pesewas. It reached 86 pesewas at the end of July before easing back to 65, which values Zagadat’s block at roughly 30.9 million cedi, about $2.7 million, and the company at 178.4 million cedi, some $15.7 million. The shares remain more than eight times what they were when the notification was filed.

The currency has helped. The cedi has strengthened to 11.37 to the dollar from around 15.4 earlier in the year, a move of roughly a quarter, which means the dollar value of Zagadat’s holding has held up even as the share price fell about 24 percent from its July peak.

A personal loss, an industrial thesis

Oluwatosin Ajibade, 35, set out his reasoning in an interview with Brut.

“Over the last three years, my mom was ill before she eventually passed, and that brought me into close proximity with hospitals,” he said. “One of the things it showed me was that a lot of people don’t have access to basic everyday drugs that they need to live. As a result, lives are being cut short because people buy substandard or fake medication, or simply can’t afford basic treatments.”

He had already been giving money away against the problem and concluded it was not enough.

“One reaction is to do CSR, and we started partnering with hospitals in Nigeria to support patient care,” he said. “But beyond that, how about making an investment where the core thesis is to drive down the unit cost of everyday essential drugs and increase the human lifespan?”

He placed the deal inside the wider group he runs.

“The underlying mission of Chop Life is the intentional enjoyment of life,” he said. “Whether it’s payments, gaming, or healthcare, every business we back must ultimately make life easier.”

Zagadat told the market it wants to work with existing management to expand capacity and grow exports across ECOWAS. It stated explicitly that the purchase is not a takeover attempt and will not disturb the company’s control, and management continues unchanged.

What the company makes

Intravenous Infusions produces what hospitals cannot operate without. Its plant at Koforidua in Ghana’s Eastern Region makes intravenous fluids, saline solutions, large-volume parenterals and small-volume injectables, including dextrose solutions and Ringer’s lactate alongside injectable chloroquine phosphate and quinine dihydrochloride. Those handle hydration, blood volume expansion and drug delivery in surgical, emergency and intensive care.

The company was incorporated in 1969 and began production in 1974, the first business making infusions locally in a market that imported all of them. It holds roughly half the Ghanaian market, employs more than 300 people and exports to Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo. Isaac Osei chairs it.

The accounts do not explain the share price run. Revenue over the trailing twelve months came to 9.3 million cedi, down 62.7 percent, and the company posted a net loss of about 4.6 million cedi. Stated capital is 11.6 million cedi and it has proposed raising a further 50 million through a rights issue.

Because the shares were bought on the open market, none of Zagadat’s money reached the business. Whatever Ajibade does to cut the unit cost of drugs at Koforidua will have to come through influence on the register rather than capital in the accounts.

Inside the portfolio

Zagadat launched as a venture firm backing fintech, music distribution and gaming, and this is its first move into listed industrial equity.

Its holdings include pawaPay, a cross-border payments processor handling mobile money integration for global merchants across more than ten African markets, and Chop Life Gaming, the betting and digital gaming operation running across several African jurisdictions. Ajibade separately founded emPawa Africa, the music incubator and distribution business that provides rights management, capital advances and marketing infrastructure to independent African artists.

The firm exited Vydia, the American music technology and distribution platform, when gamma acquired it in March 2023. It holds early-stage positions in Eden Life and Vendease, both in tech-enabled logistics and food supply across West Africa, and in Ruka Hair, a British direct-to-consumer brand selling ethically sourced hair extensions for Black women.

Ajibade pledged $2 million toward an Accra event centre at Detty Rave 7, and said last month that he intends to list a technology company on the Nigerian Exchange, naming Aliko Dangote, Abdul Samad Rabiu and Femi Otedola as the men he wants to follow.