Ellah Lakes Plc is asking investors for patience, not quick wins. Its N235 billion public offer, one of the largest equity raises in Nigeria’s agribusiness space, is anchored on a single proposition: scale now, harvest value later.
For investors willing to look beyond short-term earnings and into the structural gaps in Nigeria’s food economy, the offer presents a rare entry point into a rapidly growing ecosystem, palm oil production.
At the centre of the offer is Ellah Lakes’ proposed acquisition of Agro-Allied Resources & Processing Nigeria Limited (ARPN). ARPN is an integrated oil palm and cassava business formerly owned by Tolaram Africa and Valuestar Holdings. Once completed, the deal would transform Ellah Lakes from a modest-sized listed agribusiness into one of Nigeria’s largest agro-industrial players by land size and production potential.
Buying time in a land-constrained industry
The numbers are telling. Ellah Lakes currently operates about 2,400 hectares of cultivated oil palms, with total land holdings of roughly 13,900 hectares. Post-acquisition, its total landbank would rise to about 34,000 hectares, with nearly 18,500 hectares under cultivation. The scale is comparable to established players such as Presco and Okomu Oil.
In an industry defined by long gestation periods and limited access to large, prepared farmland, scaling to this level in months rather than decades is the strategic logic behind the transaction.
Beyond land size, ARPN brings maturity. About 60 percent of its 6,280-hectare oil palm plantation is entering peak yield years, offering near-term production upside. And the management expects its fresh fruit bunch (FFB) output to rise sharply, from about 6,300 tonnes in FY 2024 to roughly 20,000 tonnes by the end of FY2025.
For an industry where trees take four to seven years to mature, this age profile materially de-risks early cash flows. In the first year of acquiring ARPN, Ellah Lakes is predicting a shift to billions of Naira in cashflow.
Ellah Lakes wants to key into Nigeria’s supply gaps
Nigeria’s palm oil story is one of persistent supply deficits. Domestic consumption has consistently outpaced production, forcing imports despite the country’s historical dominance in the crop.
Read More: New roadmap targets $1.6bn boost for Nigeria’s palm oil value chain – Businessday NG
The result is a structurally defensive sector; palm oil revenues have outperformed Nigeria’s real GDP growth in recent years, while listed peers have delivered outsized share price gains. Ellah Lakes’ bet is that scale, vertical integration, and local processing will allow it to capture a slice of this imbalance.
Moving beyond farming into processing
Vertical integration is the second pillar of the investment case. Ellah Lakes is transitioning from selling raw produce to processing higher-value outputs. Its 6-metric-ton-per-day crude palm oil (CPO) mill in Edo State and ARPN’s existing cassava processing assets allow the company to move further down the value chain, from cultivation into industrial and consumer inputs such as edible oils, starches and animal feed. This improves margins, stabilises earnings, and reduces exposure to volatile farm-gate prices.
The public offer proceeds are earmarked primarily for the ARPN acquisition, expansion of processing capacity, land development and working capital. At N12.50 per share, the offer values Ellah Lakes at a level that reflects ambition rather than current earnings. The company posted just N67 million in revenue in FY2025 and paid no dividends.
Read More: Ellah Lakes breaks silence on years of investment with revenue now in sight – Businessday NG
Management, however, projects revenues exceeding N200 billion by 2030, alongside regular dividend payments, driven largely by the acquired assets and expanded processing footprint.
Execution risk remains the key concern. Integrating a business with over 1,800 staff, managing large-scale plantations, and funding land development in a high-interest-rate environment will test management discipline. Yet Ellah Lakes’ leadership team, drawn from agribusiness, capital markets and project finance, has positioned the ARPN deal as a foundation rather than an endpoint, with further selective acquisitions envisaged.
This is a long-term equity story
For investors, this is not a yield play. It is a long-term equity story tied to Nigeria’s food security agenda, import substitution and agro-industrialisation. The offer provides access to large-scale farmland, mature oil palm assets, and processing infrastructure that are rarely available on the public market.
In essence, Ellah Lakes is offering shareholders a stake in agricultural patience; capital deployed today to build capacity that only time, trees and integration can unlock. For those aligned with that horizon, the public offer may be worth a closer look.
