AMCON to conclude sales of Keystone Bank in 2 weeks

New owner of Keystone Bank, formerly Bank PHB Plc, and the last of the three distressed banks besides Enterprise Bank and Mainstreet Bank acquired by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) in 2011, will be announced in two weeks.

According to AMCON, it would conclude the process for the sale of Keystone Bank in the next two weeks. AMCON said it was in the final stage of the sale process, adding that the result would be announced this month.

Keystone Bank, formerly Bank PHB Plc, is the only one remaining from the three bridge banks that were acquired by the corporation in 2011. Enterprise Bank was sold to Heritage Bank in 2014, while Mainstreet Bank was acquired by Skye Bank in 2015.

“We are almost at the final stages of the process. I think in the next two weeks, we should be able to conclude and announce the result,” Ahmed Kuru, managing Director and CEO of AMCON stated at the weekend.

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“You know it is a long process and because it is a financial institution, we don’t like to talk about it because if we do, it can have an impact on what they are doing.But we have gone very far and we are at the final stage; in the next one or two weeks, we should be able to come out with the conclusion of the process,” he added.

AMCON was set up in 2010 to absorb bad loans in the banking sector as part of resolving a financial crisis in the country.The corporation said that its debt recovery effort was being hampered by the economic recession, rise in inflation and the devaluation of the naira.

Kuru also said the six per cent interest payment on loans in its books made it suffer a loss of N304.35bn in its 2015 operating year.

He added that the corporation had so far recovered over N644bn, adding that that it was not set up to make profits but to help resolve the problem of non-performing loans in the banking industry.