Litigation stalling AMCON’s debt recovery efforts—Kuru

Managing Director and CEO of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Ahmed Lawan Kuru has revealed that majority of the 350 individuals and business entities with 84 per cent of the yet-to-be-recovered debts have tied the corporation down in courts, a situation that has stalled efforts to resolve the cases.

Recently after the first meeting between Mr Ahmed Lawan Kuru, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Office of AMCON and the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, the Minister disclosed that the Federal Government was working towards winding down the asset management behemoth, which was established at the height of the non-performing loan crisis in 2010, to clean up the heavily encumbered books of the banks.

Revelations by Kuru, during an interactive session suggest that the company is far from resolving the pending cases as litigation stalls processes leading to quick resolution of the pending cases. According to Kuru, 257 cases out of the 350 obligors who sit on over 84 per cent of dead assets of banks inherited by AMCON are currently at different stages of litigation.

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Hence, he said, the underlying assets used as collateral cannot be liquidated by the organisation just like that.

Kuru also hinted that some obligors of AMCON were jubilant, and some even stopped picking our calls thinking that they will walk away from the debt once AMCON winds down.

Further information released by AMCON claimed that 350 obligors or 2.8 per cent of the total 12,700 debtors involved in the non-performing loan (NPL) hold 84 per cent of the total amounts, which have continued to accumulate interest.

From inception, Kuru also disclosed in Lagos on Monday, that the Corporation has only sold 350 assets, while most are not in the market owing to legal encumbrances. But apart from litigation, pricing may have also slowed the speed of disposing of the assets. The pricing template is set by the CBN guidelines, which set the value above what prospective buyers consider above-market prices.

The AMCON boss asked the affected debtors who are interested in resolving their cases with the Corporation to make a serious offer, saying it “understands that the transactions involved are commercial and not criminal.”

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He said owners of Arik and other seized assets must present resolution strategies that make sense to AMCON, the CBN and the Ministry of Finance if they truly want to be listened to.

Kuru explained that AMCON does not take pride in taking over thriving businesses but noted that it just happened that the firm got caught up in the Arik saga and intervened to save the carrier.

“The idea of Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo was that Arik must be saved because of its prominence at that time. We made it clear at that time that we didn’t know anything much about aviation. Capt. Roy Ilegbodu was headhunted.

There was Capt Roy, then Capt. Ado Sanusi. These are some of the best guys in the industry. They said AMCON came to kill Arik when in fact, Arik would have long gone. But the fact that AMCON’s name was there, then, AMCON has killed it,” he added.

He noted that the case of Aero Contractors was worse before AMCON came in for a rescue, simply describing what culminated in the near-death of the once flourishing carrier to a case of “when people decide to steal from themselves, hinting, “AMCON can never be popular with the kind of job we do. We don’t go and close a running business. Some of those businesses were already dead. AMCON cannot see a thriving business and close it down. It does not happen like that,” Kuru concluded.