Cappa and D'Alberto Plc: Registry Record, Ownership and Delivery History

Cappa and D'Alberto Plc has built some of the most recognisable buildings in Lagos and Abuja, and its audited accounts stop in 2019. Anyone assessing the firm today has to hold both of those facts together.

The company is a building contractor rather than a residential developer, which matters for anyone arriving at its name expecting estates and off-plan units. It builds for other people: banks, churches, oil companies, multilateral lenders. What follows is what the public record supports about its registration, its ownership and its delivery history, and where that record runs out.

Registration and corporate identity

Cappa and D'Alberto Plc is registered in Nigeria under RC 768 and was incorporated on 29 April 1950. Its registered head office is 72 Campbell Street, Lagos. These details appear in the company's audited annual report for the year ended 31 March 2018 and are repeated in the Scheme of Arrangement it published in August 2019.

The business is older than the incorporation. Note 55 of the audited accounts for the year ended 31 March 2019 states plainly: "The company was established as a partnership in 1932 and was incorporated in Nigeria in 1950 as a limited liability company." The Scheme document names the founders as Pietro Carlo Cappa and Vigino D'Alberto.

One point of confusion is worth settling first. G. Cappa is a different Nigerian construction company. The two firms have similar names and are routinely conflated in press coverage and project credits. A contract, a judgment or a building attributed to one is not evidence about the other.

Why the shares stopped trading

Cappa and D'Alberto is a public limited company that is not listed. Shareholders passed a special resolution to delist at a general meeting on 24 March 2009. The shares had already stopped trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange nine days earlier, on 15 March 2009, at ₦90.72, according to a Proshare analysis published on 8 March 2013.

The gap between the resolution and the delisting became a dispute. That same Proshare piece reported in March 2013 that the company had "released itself from compliance with the obligations inherent of a listed company" and had "failed to follow through the entire voluntary delisting process," citing non-payment of dissenting shareholders and non-submission of required financial reports, and reported that the Exchange referred the matter to the Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2012.

The delisting took effect years later. The Nigerian Stock Exchange gave notice that "effective today, 16 January 2015, the shares of Cappa and D'Alberto Plc will be delisted from the Daily Official List of The Exchange," as reproduced by Nairametrics on the day, which described the step as closing a sixty-nine month impasse. The company continued to hold annual general meetings, publish audited accounts and pay dividends as an unlisted public company after that point. THISDAY reported in May 2016 that its shares were by then trading on the NASD OTC platform.

Who owns it

The Scheme of Arrangement dated 14 August 2019 sets out the shareholding as at 19 July 2018, and it is unusual for a Nigerian contractor of this age:

| Shareholder | Holding |

| --- | --- |

| Construction and Engineering Investment A.G. | 32.14% |

| International Building Investment A.G. | 25.75% |

| Ibile Holdings Limited | 18.56% |

| Ecobank Transnational Incorporated | 10.00% |

| Nigerian minority holders | 13.55% |

The two largest shareholders are Liechtenstein holding companies. The Scheme document describes International Building Investment A.G. as an investment holding entity incorporated in Liechtenstein whose "shares are held in bearer shares under the laws of Liechtenstein," and Construction and Engineering Investment A.G. as incorporated in Eschen, Liechtenstein. It explains that after the delisting, the residual interests of the original 1932 owners passed to their estates, which then floated the two entities. Together they held 57.89%.

Ibile Holdings Limited is the Lagos State Government investment vehicle.

The 2019 Scheme was a buyout of the remaining minorities. Under section 539 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, the two Liechtenstein companies offered ₦25.85 per share for the 33,353,181 shares they and the two institutional holders did not own, a total of ₦862,179,728.85. The document's proposed timetable sets down a Securities and Exchange Commission clearance letter for 26 July 2019, a Federal Inland Revenue Service approval for 23 August 2019, and a court-ordered meeting for 7 October 2019 at the Muson Centre in Lagos. Those are scheduled steps in a document dated 14 August 2019, not confirmations that they happened.

Whether the scheme was sanctioned by the court and whether minority holders were paid is not something the public record answers. No filing, court report or news coverage confirming the outcome could be located. That is an absence of information, not a finding.

The delivery record, as far as it is documented

The audited accounts list what the firm completed year by year.

For the year ended 31 March 2018, the company reported completing a Guaranty Trust Bank branch office in Abuja, a mixed development for Gloworld at Victoria Island and a residential development at Ikoyi. For the year ended 31 March 2019 it reported completing the Diamond Bank head office at Lekki and a refurbishment of Holy Cross Cathedral, and signed new contracts including the Mike Adenuga Centre at Ikoyi. A hotel contract for Quantum Properties is recorded as suspended in both years.

Larger projects can be traced through clients and press:

- Wings Office Complex, Victoria Island. Vanguard reported on 12 October 2014 that the building was "being constructed by Cappa and D'Alberto, with a 32 month completion" and "expected to be delivered by November 2016." Oando Plc announced the commissioning on 4 April 2018, naming Cappa D'Alberto as the building and civil engineering firm.

- Citadel Global Community Church, Oregun. Church Times Nigeria reported on 5 September 2020 that the complex "was built by Cappa and D'Alberto Ltd" and was handed over the previous day. The company's own accounts list The Latter Rain Assembly (Citadel Project) among its major construction customers in both FY2018 and FY2019, which corroborates the relationship independently.

- National Arts Theatre, Iganmu. BusinessDay reported on 14 February 2021 that the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bankers' Committee awarded the refurbishment contract to Cappa & D'Alberto. The Guardian Nigeria put the contract at ₦21 billion in May 2021, with work beginning that month and an announced completion fifteen months from commencement. The refurbished complex was commissioned on 1 October 2025 according to the National Arts, Leisure and Tourism Foundation. That is roughly three years beyond the announced schedule.

- Afreximbank African Trade Centre, Abuja. BusinessDay reported on 11 April 2025 that the US$120 million centre was built by Cappa & D'Alberto with named subcontractors, having begun construction in November 2021, and formally opened that month.

The last audited year on record was a hard one. Group revenue fell from ₦22.14 billion in FY2018 to ₦17.34 billion in FY2019, and profit attributable to equity holders fell from ₦2.047 billion to ₦304.3 million. The Chairman warned shareholders that contracts on hand were "not sufficient to sustain a healthy turn-over."

What is not on the record

No annual report, financial statement or filing after the year ended 31 March 2019 could be located. The company's website serves 404 for its 2020 to 2024 report pages and for its about, projects and management pages. The most recent filed confirmation of the board, including Franco Gianotti as Chairman and Giovanni Mello Grand as Managing Director, is the August 2019 Scheme document.

On litigation, the Supreme Court decided *Cappa and D'Alberto Ltd v. Deji Akintilo* in 2003, a negligence claim over a vehicle damaged by flying stones from a worksite, which the company lost. The FY2019 accounts disclose pending litigation without naming cases or amounts, and state that directors believe they have good defences. No safety enforcement action, building collapse or tax dispute involving the company could be located.

The pattern here is worth recognising anywhere. A long trading history and landmark buildings tell you a firm can build. They do not tell you its current financial position or who controls it today, and in this case the documents that would answer both stop six years ago. Bektu (https://bektu.com) tracks delivery history across Nigerian developers and contractors for exactly that reason, and the company's own listing sits at https://bektu.com/companies/cappa-and-dalberto-plc.

Three steps apply to any Nigerian firm before you commit money: confirm the registration against the Corporate Affairs Commission rather than a third-party listing, ask for the most recent audited accounts and note the date on them, and separate announced completion dates from commissioned ones. Our guide to verifying a Nigerian property developer before buying off-plan sets out the checks in order, and the registry and delivery record of Landwey Investment Limited shows the same exercise on a residential developer. Who actually regulates Nigerian developers is covered in our piece on the REDAN regulation gap.