Late Nigerian banking executive Herbert Wigwe has been revealed as the owner of 106 properties in London, making him the seventh-largest billionaire property holder in the British capital.
The disclosure comes from a report by The Londoner, part of an investigation titled “Revealed: The billionaires who really own London,” which examined 32,611 London properties held by foreign entities after a recent UK law mandated that overseas companies declare their beneficial owners.
According to the researchers, the new transparency rules allowed authorities to link previously hidden owners to key commercial and residential properties across the city, including locations such as Oxford Street, Canary Wharf, and Greenwich Peninsula.
Wigwe, who served as Group Chief Executive Officer of Access Holdings Plc, died in a helicopter crash in the United States in February 2024 alongside his wife, son, and former Nigerian Exchange Group chairman Abimbola Ogunbanjo. Since his death, members of his family have reportedly been involved in legal disputes over his estate.
The report also noted that many of London’s high-value properties are owned through offshore companies registered in jurisdictions such as Jersey, where ownership information had previously been less transparent.
