By Yemi Kolapo

Tuesday, 8 Feb 2011

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria has commenced discussions with debtors of banks rescued by the Central Bank of Nigeria last year as it enters the restructuring phase of its rescue programme in the banking sector.

The Managing Director, AMCON, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi, who disclosed this to our correspondent, added that the bank would begin the process of acquiring the remaining non-performing loans of the Deposit Money Banks next week.

He spoke in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Monday.

According to Chike-Obi, the debtors of banks, whose NPLs have been acquired, have become AMCON’s debtors, and “so, at this stage, we have begun to talk with some of them, and we will continue to talk to more with a view to assessing their problems and working out modalities for repayment.”

He said, “I have two hard deadlines: I have to buy all the non-performing loans of all the banks by the end of the first quarter of 2011. We also have to recapitalise all the rescued banks by the end of the second quarter.”

On bank debtors, he had said, “After the acquisition stage, we then need to sit down with the debtors, in what I call the restructuring mood. We will sit down with each one of them, understand their situation and try and get to a point that is helpful to them, but also responsible to the taxpayers. Inevitably, there will be some assets that we will acquire, and we will have to manage these assets in such a manner that will minimise the cost of resolution.”

The AMCON MD also said that the corporation would begin to visit the banks before the end of next week with regard to their remaining non-performing loans, adding that the banks would be expected to submit their proposals after the visit.

He said the corporation was on track to resolve all issues relating to non-performing loans, saying, although there was so much to be done, AMCON had the capacity to meet its soft and hard deadlines.

The corporation had said that it had not floated the N1.5tn bonds as earlier scheduled because it was seeking some waivers from the Ministry of Finance and the Debt Management Office.

It had acquired N1.036tn NPLs of 21 banks at its completion board meeting in December.

Source: Punch