Tycoon Aderemi Makanjuola’s Caverton posts $10m 9-month loss

Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc, the Nigerian helicopter and marine services company controlled by aviation tycoon Aderemi Makanjuola, nearly tripled its loss in the first nine months of 2026 as the cost of servicing its debt outweighed a small rise in sales.

The Lagos-listed company lost ₦13.66 billion ($10 million) in the nine months to Sept. 30, compared with a loss of ₦4.58 billion a year earlier, according to its unaudited results. Revenue edged up 1.4% to ₦20.74 billion ($15.2 million) from ₦20.45 billion. The loss per share widened to ₦4.12 from ₦1.38.

Investors sold the stock after the results. Caverton shares fell 10%, the daily limit, to close at ₦3.60 on Friday. They have dropped 25% in five trading days and a third since the start of the year.

Finance costs weigh

Interest on Caverton’s borrowings has been the main drag on its earnings this year. In the first half, the company booked net finance costs of ₦8.4 billion and posted a loss of ₦8.69 billion, compared with a profit of ₦2.04 billion in the same period of 2025.

Based on the half-year and nine-month figures, Caverton lost about ₦4.97 billion ($3.6 million) in the third quarter on revenue of about ₦6.06 billion. That was a wider loss than the ₦3.7 billion it posted in the second quarter, when revenue rose 41% from the first quarter to ₦8.6 billion.

The company has been reworking its remaining dollar-denominated bank loans to cut its exposure to the naira’s swings and bring down interest costs. It has not disclosed the size of the facilities or the new terms. “The first half of the year tested us, but the direction of travel is now visible in the numbers,” Chief Executive Officer Olabode Makanjuola said in August.

Caverton’s balance sheet remains under pressure. At the end of June, its liabilities exceeded its assets, leaving shareholders’ equity negative, and it carried accumulated losses of about ₦83 billion.

Makanjuola’s stake

Makanjuola and his family own 2.47 billion Caverton shares, or about three-quarters of the company. At Friday’s closing price, the holding is worth about ₦8.9 billion ($6.5 million). This year’s slide in the shares has cut its value by about ₦4.4 billion ($3.3 million) since the start of January, when the stock traded at ₦5.40.

Makanjuola, a former banker and economist, founded Caverton in the early 2000s to give Nigeria a locally owned provider of helicopter transport for the oil and gas industry, which had long relied on foreign contractors. The group flies crews to offshore oil platforms, runs marine logistics and aircraft maintenance, and has invested in hangars and a flight simulator training centre in Lagos. He is also chancellor of Edo State University.

Figures were converted at ₦1,365 to the dollar.