AMCON will not seek additional funding from govt —-Chike-Obi

The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) said the N10 billion combined statutory injections from the CBN and the Ministry of Finance was sufficient for its operations. The AMCON Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi, said this on Sunday in Lagos. Chike-Obi said that recoveries from the Non-Performing Loans (NPLs), equity investments in the nationalised banks and inflows from the Banking Sector Resolution Fund (Sinking Fund) were sufficient for its operations.

“We have received N5 billion from the CBN and another N5 billion from the Ministry of Finance. The possibility of the Federal Government spending more funds on AMCON remains very low,’’ he said. The Sinking Fund is a binding agreement between the banks to contribute three basic points of audited total assets at the end of each year to help AMCON to pay some of its recovery expenses. Chike-Obi said that the three nationalised banks: Mainstreet Bank, Keystone Bank and Enterprise Bank would be sold to new investors by 2013.
He restated AMCON’s commitment to the protection of depositors’ funds and continued willingness to intervene in any ailing bank if the need arose. The AMCON chief said that the corporation would not hesitate to take over any other ailing bank if the situation that necessitated the case of the earlier nationalised banks recurred. Chike-Obi said that AMCON had injected N679 billion into the three banks to bring them to right capital adequacy levels and strengthen them to meet their obligations to depositors.

“We want to stabilise the banks before selling them within 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.’’ Chike-Obi said that after AMCON’s intervention in the banks by acquiring more than N3.1 trillion NPLs from them, the banks’ balance sheets had become cleaner and healthier than they had been in a long time. He also said that the taking over of the loans from the lending banks would stabilise the industry and remove the adverse implications of default on the banks’ liquidity. He said that the corporation was more interested in securing the jobs of employees of those firms than taking measures that would run them out of business.