Unity Bank shareholders will, on September 26, 2025, gather for a decisive meeting that could seal the bank’s future under a proposed merger with Providus Bank Limited.

Under the terms of the scheme, shareholders are set to receive either N3.18 per share or 18 Providus shares for every 17 Unity Bank shares they currently hold. The Federal High Court in Lagos, presided over by Hon. Justice D. I. Dipeolu, issued an order convening the meeting where shareholders will deliberate on the payouts, the transfer of assets and liabilities, and other elements of the merger.

The court’s order also empowers Unity Bank’s directors to make adjustments as required by regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), or the court itself.

If approved, the merger will see all of Unity Bank’s assets, liabilities, properties, intellectual rights, and pending litigations transferred to Providus Bank. The scheme also proposes canceling Unity Bank’s share capital, effectively dissolving the bank without winding it up, with Providus Bank’s certificate of incorporation covering the enlarged entity.

Shareholders will also vote on whether to grant directors the authority to implement the scheme and authorize Unity Bank’s solicitors to seek court sanctioning if necessary.

Backstory and Financial Underpinnings

The merger traces back to August 2024, when the Central Bank of Nigeria gave formal approval for the Unity-Providus deal. A day later, the CBN authorized a N700 billion bailout loan to facilitate the recapitalization of the new banking entity, marking the first major Nigerian banking merger in five years.

The deal was projected to create a combined network of 231 branches nationwide, with CBN funding cushioning what might have otherwise been a turbulent transition.

A large chunk of the bailout was dedicated to clearing Unity Bank’s heavy debt pile:

• N303.7 billion in obligations, including N92 billion owed to First Bank of Nigeria.
• N51.7 billion owed to the CBN under the Anchor Borrower Scheme.
• N135 billion owed to NIRSAL (Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending).

The remainder, N392.3 billion, was earmarked for investment in a 20-year Federal Government bond, qualifying as tier-2 capital for the merged entity.

What Shareholders Should Know

The upcoming meeting will be conducted by poll, with shareholders allowed to vote in person or through representatives. Joint shareholders will vote according to the order of seniority listed in the company’s register.

Votes or instructions must be submitted to the company secretary by September 23, 2025. The results will then be presented to the court by the Chairman, Mr. Hafiz Mohammed Bashir, the Managing Director, Mr. Ebenezer A. Kolawole, or any other director appointed by shareholders.

The Merger: Lessons from History

The Unity-Providus deal brings a flashback from the Nigerian banking industry history, which has witnessed many banks collapse under the weight of a toxic balance sheet due to a lack of early intervention from the central bank.

The Nigerian banking crisis of 2009, for example, saw institutions like Oceanic Bank and Intercontinental Bank fall apart after the CBN found massive holes in their books. Unlike Unity Bank’s situation today, both banks were eventually acquired after their shareholders were nearly wiped out, with the government forcing mergers to stabilize the sector.

Similarly, Savannah Bank, once a prominent player, lost its license in 2002 after years of insolvency and could not survive because no structured bailout or merger partner was arranged in time. Shareholders in such cases walked away empty-handed.

However, the situation has since changed for the better following the recapitalization of the banks in 2004 – 2005, with the Nigerian apex bank improving its regulatory oversight to arrest situations of toxic balance sheets early on and proffer a merger solution.

Thus, Unity Bank’s ongoing merger and the CBN’s financial intervention signal a more managed approach aimed at preventing total collapse while protecting shareholder and depositor confidence.

Anthropic on Tuesday announced it has closed a massive $13 billion funding round at a $183 billion post-money valuation — roughly triple what the artificial intelligence startup was worth as of its last raise in March.

The round was led by Iconiq, Fidelity Management & Research Co., and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with other participants including Altimeter, General Catalyst, and Coatue, Anthropic said.

“This financing demonstrates investors’ extraordinary confidence in our financial performance and the strength of their collaboration with us to continue fueling our unprecedented growth,” Anthropic finance chief Krishna Rao said in a statement.

The company’s valuation has been on a steep climb since it launched its AI assistant Claude in March 2023. The Amazon-backed startup was founded by former OpenAI research executives, including its CEO Dario Amodei, who positioned Anthropic as a safety-first alternative in the rapidly evolving AI race.

Anthropic’s rise has placed it in direct competition with OpenAI, which rocketed into the mainstream following the release of ChatGPT in 2022. OpenAI is also preparing to sell stock as part of a secondary sale that would value the company at roughly $500 billion, as CNBC reported in August.

The rivalry reflects broader dynamics in the AI sector, where investors are pouring billions into leading firms amid surging global demand for advanced large language models. Tech giants have taken sides, with Amazon and Google both investing in Anthropic, while Microsoft remains OpenAI’s largest backer.

Anthropic said its run-rate revenue has soared to more than $5 billion as of August, up sharply from roughly $1 billion at the beginning of the year, driven by the adoption of Claude by large enterprises. The company now serves more than 300,000 business customers worldwide.

The fresh capital will be deployed to deepen Anthropic’s research into AI safety, meet growing enterprise demand, and support international expansion, underscoring its ambition to challenge OpenAI’s dominance in the generative AI space.

The record funding also highlights a broader investor bet on the future of AI. Despite billions of dollars already funneled into the industry — with Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in OpenAI standing out as the most notable example — AI startups are still largely unproven in delivering long-term financial returns.

By March 2025, OpenAI closed a record-setting $40 billion funding round at a $300 billion valuation — the largest capital raise ever by a private technology company. Earlier last month, it followed up with another $8.3 billion injection tied to that same round. In August, Bloomberg reported that the company has $6 billion secondary offering under discussion, with its valuation expected to climb to around $500 billion.

This shows that investors continue to double down, signaling faith that the sector will eventually reshape entire industries and yield enormous profits. But for now, revenues are climbing quickly, while the massive scale of investment has outpaced realized profits. Yet the ongoing willingness of investors to pour more capital into firms like Anthropic suggests they view AI not as a passing hype cycle, but as the foundation of the next great technological revolution.

The United Kingdom has announced a $7.5 million debt investment aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and climate resilience among smallholder farmers in Northern Nigeria, a region that remains the country’s breadbasket yet one of its most vulnerable to climate change.

The funding, which flows through British International Investment (BII) to the agritech enterprise Babban Gona, is expected to reach up to 140,000 farmers by 2029. It is aimed at dismantling structural barriers that have long constrained rural farmers—limited access to finance, weak input supply chains, inadequate agronomic training, and unreliable market access.

At its core, the initiative is also about future-proofing Nigeria’s food supply against climate risks. Recurrent flooding, prolonged droughts, and shifting weather patterns have already eroded farm productivity and destabilized incomes across much of the north.

Florence Eshalomi, the UK’s newly appointed Trade Envoy to Nigeria, described the investment as a practical extension of the Enhanced Trade Partnership Agreement signed in 2024, which set the tone for a new era of economic collaboration under President Bola Tinubu’s government.

“These first steps show that the UK government is keen to build on our longstanding relationship and cultural ties,” Eshalomi told Nairametrics. “We’re committed to working closely with President Tinubu’s team to secure impactful trade deals and development partnerships.”

She emphasized the symbolic weight of recent engagements—the Foreign Secretary’s and Mayor of London’s visits to Nigeria, as well as the influence of the Nigerian diaspora in the UK—as signs of intensifying bilateral ties.

British Deputy High Commissioner in Lagos, Jonny Baxter, underscored the need for urgent support for smallholder farmers, who are responsible for much of Nigeria’s staple food production.

“The UK is making this $7.5 million debt investment to address key challenges facing smallholder farmers, including poor access to finance, quality inputs, agronomic training, and reliable markets,” Baxter said.

Although northern states produce up to 60% of Nigeria’s maize, he noted that smallholders still face stubbornly low productivity, with climate change magnifying the risks of crop failure.

Struggles with Low Yields and Post-Harvest Losses

For Babban Gona’s Managing Director, Kola Masha, the scale of the challenge is both daunting and urgent. “Northern Nigeria accounts for 50–60% of the country’s maize production, yet smallholder farmers in the region continue to struggle with low yields and post-harvest losses of up to 30%,” Masha explained.

“These farmers operate on small plots with limited access to credit, quality inputs, and agronomic training. Climate risks are compounding these issues, threatening both food security and livelihoods.”

The UK’s capital injection will bolster Babban Gona’s AI-powered service platform, which offers farmers end-to-end solutions—ranging from credit and climate-smart training to improved seed and fertilizer access, as well as post-harvest support like storage and market linkage.

Trade Ties Beyond Agriculture

The investment also fits into a wider story of deepening UK-Nigeria trade relations. In July, the Mayor of London’s office unveiled plans to address long-standing financial bottlenecks that Nigerian firms face when seeking to expand operations in Britain.

During a recent trip to Lagos, Deputy Mayor of London Howard Dawber identified banking access as a major obstacle. Many Nigerian businesses, despite proven credibility and strong balance sheets, continue to face hurdles in opening accounts in London.

He pledged to work with UK regulators to explore flexible risk assessments and technical fixes that could remove these barriers and allow legitimate firms to conduct cross-border business more seamlessly.

To many in Nigeria, the UK’s investment is more than just agricultural financing—it is a signal of renewed external confidence in the country’s private sector at a time when food security is fragile and the climate crisis is accelerating. It also represents a model of how international trade, development priorities, and local entrepreneurship can converge to produce solutions with long-term economic impact.

If successful, Babban Gona’s expansion could help stabilize food prices, reduce rural poverty, and shield vulnerable farmers from environmental shocks, while giving UK-Nigeria relations fresh momentum built on shared development goals.

OpenAI announced in a blog post on Tuesday that it agreed to acquire the product testing startup, Statsig, and bring on its founder and CEO, Vijaye Raji, as the company’s Chief Technology Officer of Applications.

OpenAI is paying $1.1 billion for Statsig in an all-stock deal — one of the largest acquisitions ever for the ChatGPT maker — under the company’s current $300 billion valuation, OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood told TechCrunch.

The acquisition marks OpenAI’s latest effort to build out its Applications business, helmed by the former CEO of Instacart, Fidji Simo, who started work at the company a few weeks ago. Raji will report to Simo and will head product engineering for ChatGPT, the company’s AI coding tool Codex, and future applications that OpenAI plans to build.

The company says that bringing Statsig’s experimentation platform in-house will accelerate product development across the Applications organization.

As Raji comes on board, OpenAI is making changes to its leadership team.

The company’s Chief Product Officer, Kevin Weil, will become VP of a new group called OpenAI for Science, he announced in a post on LinkedIn. Weil says the goal of his new organization “is to build the next great scientific instrument: an AI-powered platform that accelerates scientific discovery.” Weil says he will work closely with Sebastien Bubeck, an OpenAI researcher and the Former VP of AI and Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft.

“I’m able to do this because the product and design leaders at OpenAI are amazing, and now are complemented by Fidji Simo beginning her role as CEO of Applications,” said Weil. “OpenAI’s products have been my life since I joined, and they’re in great hands.”

Meanwhile, OpenAI’s current head of engineering, Srinivas Narayanan, announced in a post on LinkedIn that he would transition to a new role as the company’s CTO of B2B Applications. In the role, Narayanan says he will collaborate directly with OpenAI’s COO, Brad Lightcap, who oversees many of the company’s relationships with enterprise customers.

OpenAI says the Statsig acquisition is pending regulatory review. Once completed, the company says that all Statsig employees will become OpenAI employees. However, the product testing startup will “continue operating independently and serving its customer base out of its Seattle office,” the company said in a blog post.

This deal draws a notable parallel with Meta’s recent acquisition of Scale AI and the onboarding of its founder, Alexander Wang, into a key leadership role. In Meta’s case, the move was not only about acquiring advanced data-labeling and AI scaling technology but also about securing the vision and leadership of a founder who had built infrastructure critical for AI development.

Meta positioned itself to accelerate its AI ambitions by absorbing both the company and its leadership talent. With its Reality Labs bleeding billions, Zuckerberg appears to be shifting Meta’s core bet toward AI, betting that breakthroughs in LLMs, autonomous agents, and eventually artificial general intelligence (AGI) will define the next era of computing.

Scale AI, now a major partner, provides the data infrastructure necessary to train such systems. Wang, its founder, launched Scale at 19 and turned it into a key supplier of high-quality datasets to firms like OpenAI, Nvidia, and the US government. His move to Meta, insiders say, gives the company deep bench strength in both talent and tools.

OpenAI’s $1.1 billion purchase of Statsig mirrors this approach: it is less about acquiring a product alone and more about embedding the strategic mind behind it — Vijaye Raji — into its leadership core.

Analysts believe that this reflects a growing pattern in the AI sector, where acquisitions are increasingly doubling as leadership and talent pipelines. The integration of founders directly into high-level roles ensures that their product philosophies and technical expertise do not just get absorbed into the larger company but also actively shape its future direction.