The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria will next week begin the process of selling the three nationalised banks that it acquired last year.

The Managing Director, AMCON, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi, told our correspondent on Thursday that the corporation would roll out the timetable that would guide the public and interested investors on how the banks would be sold in a couple of days.

Chike-Obi had earlier said that the three banks – Mainstreet Bank Limited, Keystone Bank Limited and Enterprise Bank Limited – would be steady by 2013 and, thereafter, sold to investors.

“We will start the process of selling the banks next week; it is a gradual process, which involves a lot of things.  We will roll out advertisement starting from next week, which will run for six weeks. We are not appointing financial advisers as wrongly said by some people. We will give everybody the opportunity to apply,” he said.

The AMCON boss stressed that the entire process would be transparent.

 ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…“It will be a level playing field for everybody. Both local and foreign investors will be given the chance to apply, but the Central Bank of Nigeria will have to approve the investors,” he said.

AMCON had injected N679bn into the three banks to bring them to the right capital adequacy levels and strengthen them so that they would be able to meet their obligations to depositors.

Chike-Obi had said that the corporation wanted to stabilise the banks before selling them over the next two years.

“So far, our intervention in these banks has saved 14,000 jobs and will continue to add value to the economy. Our objective is to stabilise the banking system and bring these banks to a comfortable level where they will have enough funds to lend to the real sector of the economy,” he said.

AMCON has so far invested N3.14tn ($19.6bn) in the purchase of non-performing loans and recapitalisation of distressed banks in the country.

It engaged 70 professional valuers to determine the appropriate value of the assets of the debtors, which were transferred to the bad-assets company through loan purchase agreements with the banks.

AMCON disclosed last week on the sidelines of the Bankers’ Committee meeting held in Lagos that it was recovering debt from its debtors at a faster rate as expected, adding that it had recovered N600bn from its debtors.

 He said, “We are recovering the debt at a faster rate as expected. We have recovered about N100bn so far this year in addition to N500bn recovered before. Our target is to recover N1tn this year, we still have N2tn outstanding.”

Source: PUnch/Ademola Alawiye