The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria has said it will get the best bargain in the disposal process of the nationalised banks.

The Managing Director, AMCON, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi, offered insight into the decision of the corporation to start the sale of its three banks – Enterprise Bank, Keystone Bank and Mainstreet Bank.

AMCON recently announced the beginning of the final process for the sale of its wholly-owned bridge banks, indicating it would start with the sale of Enterprise Bank.

AMCON said it would complete the sale of the three banks by September 2014.

Chike-Obi said Enterprise Bank was the smallest in terms of size and cleanest of the three banks. This made it a good starting point in terms of attractiveness to investors.

According to him, while the clean structure of the bank will attract investors and motivate strong rallying start for the entire divestment transactions, its size presents a learning curve for AMCON to guard against possible mistakes in the sale of the other two.

He said there were more than 20 bidders for Enterprise Bank, which not only underscored the attractiveness of the bank but justified  the decision of the corporation to start with the bank.

He noted that the existence of several expressions of interest provided for competitive valuation and would enable the corporation to achieve the best bargain in the disposal process.

“In a complex transaction like the sale of a bank, you have to take it from the less complicated so that it will serve as learning point to correct any unintended consequences. This will provide you with the opportunity to avoid such mistakes when you are handling bigger and much more complex transactions,” Chike-Obi said.

He said all the three banks had been fully restructured and stabilised for growth, adding that the large sizes, spread and structures of Keystone Bank and Mainstreet Bank had also been main attractions for bidders looking for big impact and wider entry strategy like FirstRand.

Source: Punch (by Ademola Alawiye)