The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on Friday said debtors have started paying up, that it has so far recovered N644 billion.
The Chief Executive Officer of AMCON, Ahmed Kuru, disclosed this while briefing journalists in Lagos, however, he explained that about 80 percent of the bad loans it acquired from banks were beyond redemption.
“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.”
“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.
The corporation’s intervention in the country actually prevented the collapse of so many businesses, the CEO continued, adding that AMCON 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”.
