Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCO) is setting bold new financial benchmarks following the dual listing of its ordinary shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), moving away from its legacy Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) in a bid to attract long-term global capital and deepen investor confidence.

Speaking in London shortly after the listing on July 9, 2025, Group CEO Segun Agbaje unveiled the company’s post-listing objectives: a minimum dividend yield of 15% and a floor return on equity (ROE) of 25%—targets aimed at aligning shareholder returns with macroeconomic realities, particularly in a high-inflation environment like Nigeria.

“Every Nigerian company should pay at least 15% dividend yield, especially when you look at the inflation rate,” Agbaje said during a media briefing. “We are also setting our ROE floor at 25%, especially considering the macro volatility in Nigeria.”

From GDRs to Ordinary Shares

GTCO’s decision to transition from GDRs—where each unit represented 50 ordinary shares—to a full share listing on the LSE was not just symbolic. For Agbaje, it was a calculated move to eliminate liquidity constraints and attract more meaningful institutional flows.

“For years, the GDRs served their purpose, offering global investors a way to access our stock without the frictions of the Nigerian market. But that structure became too limiting,” he said.

The new listing creates a direct pathway for institutional capital and opens the door for deeper market participation. Trading volumes are expected to rise significantly now that the company’s ordinary shares are accessible to global investors on two major exchanges: the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) and the LSE.

GTCO raised N209 billion locally before heading abroad to raise the balance through its LSE listing. The strategy, Agbaje said, was designed to protect the over 50% of GTCO’s shareholder base that comprises Nigerian retail investors.

“We didn’t want to dilute our domestic investors unnecessarily,” he explained.

With new capital secured and the holding structure firmly in place, GTCO is gearing up for its next expansion phase. Already, the group’s income profile is diversifying, with Nigeria now accounting for 67% of its profit, West Africa 27%, East Africa 1.5%, and the UK 1.8%.

Agbaje revealed Senegal as GTCO’s next market entry, but stressed that expansion would be deliberate and anchored on dominance, not token presence.

“There’s no point being in 30 countries and being dormant. The goal is to be dominant in every market we enter, top five in each country—that’s the aspiration,” he said.

Asked about prospects in Asia or the U.S., Agbaje offered a cautious yet open view: “We’re still digesting the UK… but when we do look outward, the Far East may be a better strategic fit for us than the U.S., especially in terms of trade flows.”

Agbaje was candid about the level of scrutiny and discipline demanded by the LSE, noting that Nigerian companies must prepare for an environment where every word and action is judged by global standards.

“You must be able to defend every word. That’s the standard international markets demand—and it’s something we must adopt in Nigeria too,” he said.

He also issued a subtle critique of Nigeria’s media culture, lamenting the tendency for unchecked reports that could hurt investor confidence and due diligence processes.

“When you do due diligence on a company, everything said about it shows up. You have to be ready to defend it. But many don’t see it that way,” Agbaje added.

Forbearance and the CRR: GTCO Saw It Coming

On the controversial issue of regulatory forbearance withdrawal by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Agbaje dismissed the notion that banks were caught unprepared.

“We had letters in 2023 to exit forbearance. Therefore, we should have exited by the end of 2024,” he stated. “So whatever the regulator chose to do shouldn’t have come as a surprise. We were given more than enough time.”

He also downplayed alarm over the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), calling it a “legacy tool” for liquidity management, and expressed optimism that Nigeria’s monetary policy would eventually return to more conventional strategies.

Backstory: A Pivot with Purpose

GTCO’s decision to transition away from GDRs and list its ordinary shares on the LSE represents a major realignment in its international growth strategy. The bank had maintained GDRs on the LSE since July 2021 as a bridge to foreign investors wary of directly accessing Nigerian equities. But structural constraints and limited market activity eventually made the vehicle less attractive.

By directly listing its ordinary shares, GTCO has eliminated that middle layer, improved transparency, and positioned itself for a broader base of global investors. The move also coincides with Agbaje’s vision of building an African financial giant with robust international credibility and resilience.

A New Era for Nigerian Banks?

GTCO’s LSE listing—and the performance benchmarks it has set—may raise the bar for Nigerian financial institutions seeking to deepen international participation. Agbaje’s bold claim that “every Nigerian company should pay at least 15% dividend yield” isn’t just an investor pitch—it’s a challenge to peers.

The bank’s ambitions for regional dominance, its measured approach to international expansion, and its insistence on investor-friendly policies could redefine what it means to be a truly pan-African financial institution.

With its dual-market presence now formalized, GTCO enters a new chapter—one that will test not only its financial acumen but also its ability to lead by example in a space where capital follows clarity, discipline, and vision.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, just hours after the chipmaker closed trading with a market capitalization of over $4 trillion—a historic first for any company.

The milestone cements Nvidia’s status not only as the most valuable public company in the world but also as the face of America’s artificial intelligence revolution.

The meeting, confirmed by CNBC’s Megan Cassella, has fueled speculation over the growing strategic importance of Nvidia in U.S. economic policy, global trade, and national security. Although the exact agenda of the White House meeting remains undisclosed, it comes at a critical time for Nvidia and the broader AI semiconductor industry, particularly as U.S.-China tech tensions intensify and Washington doubles down on trade restrictions.

Nvidia’s record valuation coincides with renewed scrutiny of President Trump’s aggressive trade and tariff strategy—especially as it relates to China. Earlier this year, Trump imposed tighter export controls that effectively shut Nvidia out of the lucrative Chinese AI chip market. The H20 chip, which was specifically designed by Nvidia for Chinese customers to comply with earlier U.S. export limits, was rendered unsellable in April after the administration revoked its prior clearance and made an export license mandatory.

“China’s AI market is likely to grow to $50 billion in the next two to three years, Huang said in an interview with CNBC in May. “It would be a tremendous loss not to be able to address it as an American company,” he said.

Selling to China would also help bring revenue back to the US, contributing to taxes and helping to “create lots of jobs”, he added. “The world’s dynamic today. You just got to stay agile.”

However, Nvidia’s stock has continued to defy gravity. The company’s value surged more than 1.8% on Thursday, closing at $4.02 trillion, lifting it above tech heavyweights Apple and Microsoft. It had briefly crossed the $4 trillion mark a day earlier during intraday trading but pulled back before close.

Yet, several analysts view the company’s astronomical growth not as a validation of tariffs, but rather a quiet rebuke of them. Nvidia’s success, they argue, is being achieved despite the export controls and trade restrictions—not because of them. The company’s rally has come even as its access to one of the world’s largest markets was abruptly severed.

Indeed, Nvidia’s dominance stems from its near-monopoly on high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs), which are essential for training and running large AI models. Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, demand for Nvidia chips has surged across sectors—from cloud computing giants like Microsoft and Amazon to emerging AI startups and national governments.

While the company has profited immensely from the AI boom—its stock has skyrocketed more than 15x in five years—it is now caught in the middle of Washington’s strategic tug-of-war over who controls the future of artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration scrapped a Biden-era “AI diffusion rule” and promised to replace it with simpler and tougher export limits on who can access U.S. AI technology. Nvidia is expected to be central to that coming policy, both as a supplier and as a stakeholder. OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta, and several large AI firms depend on Nvidia for AI compute power.

Meanwhile, Trump has framed his trade policy—including tariffs on Chinese-made AI hardware and rare earth components—as essential for safeguarding U.S. jobs and technological leadership.

Based on these, the optics of Thursday’s meeting are hard to ignore. Trump has campaigned aggressively on decoupling from China and reindustrializing the U.S. economy through protectionist trade policies. At the same time, Nvidia’s ascent illustrates how global interdependence—on markets, manufacturing, and supply chains—remains baked into America’s tech sector.

The company, for instance, still depends on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) for chip fabrication. Its products are shipped worldwide. And while China now accounts for a smaller slice of Nvidia’s revenue pie, many analysts believe the company will eventually need a way back into the market to sustain long-term growth.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is accelerating efforts to expand the company’s robotaxi operations amid growing pressure from rivals like Google’s Waymo. Over the weekend, Musk revealed that Tesla is expanding its autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, and awaiting regulatory clearance to begin operations in the San Francisco Bay Area “probably in a month or two.”

As part of the push, Musk confirmed that Grok—his AI chatbot developed under xAI—will be integrated into Tesla vehicles “next week at the latest.” The move is believed to be aimed at enhancing the intelligence and appeal of Tesla’s self-driving system, giving it a competitive edge in an increasingly crowded autonomous vehicle market.

Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has steadily ramped up its robotaxi operations, particularly in California and Arizona. Unlike Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, which still requires driver supervision, Waymo vehicles operate with no human behind the wheel in designated zones. Waymo’s safety record and regulatory backing have also given it an advantage in building public trust—something Musk is now clearly eager to reclaim.

Tesla’s Gamble on Grok AI

Tesla’s decision to pair its robotaxi service with Grok—a general-purpose chatbot designed to converse, assist, and learn from human interaction—is seen as an attempt to both enrich the in-car user experience and portray Tesla as the AI-first automaker. Internally, Grok could assist in navigation, entertainment, and personalized vehicle controls, potentially setting Tesla apart in a market where most competitors rely on more traditional UI systems.

But the timing has proven fraught. Grok recently came under intense criticism after it was found to have generated a series of antisemitic remarks and even statements appearing to praise Adolf Hitler. Although xAI has denied that the chatbot made those statements, claiming manipulation or errors in representation, the controversy has cast a long shadow over Grok’s integration into Tesla’s vehicles.

Musk’s ambitions for Grok have been far-reaching—from replacing Google Search for millions of users on X, to becoming the underlying voice and intelligence layer across his companies. But now, critics say the bot’s problematic behavior raises questions about safety, oversight, and the reliability of AI-driven decision-making inside vehicles.

A Distracted CEO

The expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi footprint is happening during a turbulent period for Musk. He recently resigned from the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), only to announce plans to launch his own political party—the America Party—shortly afterward. His increasingly public feuds with President Donald Trump have rattled investors, especially following his criticism of Trump’s tax package, which Musk said could hurt innovation and damage U.S. competitiveness.

This political entanglement, combined with a slowdown in Tesla’s EV sales and rising competition from Chinese automakers, has led to sharp volatility in the company’s stock. Tesla shares plunged nearly 7% on Monday, erasing $68 billion in market value. Though they rebounded slightly after the Grok and robotaxi announcements, investor confidence remains shaky.

Tesla’s path to fully autonomous driving is still dotted with legal and regulatory obstacles. Waymo and Cruise have received permits to operate in several U.S. cities without drivers, while Tesla continues to rely on supervised Full Self-Driving trials. Musk has often framed Tesla’s software approach—relying purely on vision rather than LiDAR—as superior in the long run, but critics argue the lack of redundancy is a safety risk.

In this context, the rollout of Grok is seen as a double-edged sword. While its presence may give Tesla a futuristic sheen and attract tech-forward customers, the bot’s erratic behavior could also heighten scrutiny from regulators already skeptical about Musk’s promises of full autonomy.

With Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting scheduled for November 6, the stakes are growing. Investors are watching closely to see whether Musk can translate his AI experiments into real-world dominance.