The
Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) yesterday said that the
corporation has so far recovered N644 billion from debtors.
Speaking during a media briefing in
Lagos, the AMCON Chief Executive Officer, Ahmed Kuru, said the
corporation would continue to engage debtors to pay up their debts.
The AMCON boss noted that 80 per cent of
the bad loans it acquired from banks were beyond redemption. He said:
“Financial institutions have primary responsibilities to give out loans,
and more than 65 per cent of banks’ incomes are from interest and
loans. All these facilities they have transferred to AMCON, 80 per cent
of them are already inside the coffin. The only things that supports
them are the supporting assets.”
Kuru said that AMCON was not set up to
manage any business, adding that it does not have the capacity to do so.
“We looked at those businesses with us that are not dead, but are in
intensive care system. More than 80 per cent of the firms we acquired
are in the caskets. We are more of a resolution company, with the power
to sell the assets of the companies to recover our money. Some of them
we injected funds into, but some of them have passed the stage of
redemption,” he said.
He said that AMCON’s intervention in the
country actually prevented the collapse of so many businesses, adding
that the corporation is going about the mandate for which it was created
by the federal government in 2010 to manage the huge Non Performing
Loans (NPLs) in the banking sector. He said AMCON had not in any way
abdicated that assignment to ‘run businesses’ as perceived by some
people.
Kuru explained that AMCON does not have
the power to seal businesses, unless it gets the order from courts,
adding that some of the properties in the possession of AMCON are not
easily sold because of cash crunch in the economy. ”We want debtors to
come and talk to us on how they want to pay. We do not gain anything by
embarrassing anybody,” he said.
Kuru added that AMCON had never and
would not run any business, but as facilitators, “we encourage competent
professionals to manage businesses”.
Speaking on the takeover of Aero
Contractors, he said the company employs over 1, 600 staff with only
four aircrafts in operation. He said AMCON would do everything within
its power to ensure that Aero Contractors survives because it is in the
national interest.
On the continued posting of losses by
the corporation, he said: “AMCON cannot make profits. It is not possible
for AMCON to declare profits. We received about N160 billion annually
from the Sinking Funds. The main objective of AMCON is to ensure it
discharges its obligations at the end of its term.”
The loans acquired by the corporation
from the banks were re-valued in line with the International Financial
Reporting Standards (IFRS) at the time of acquisition, he disclosed.
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