*21 firms indicate interest to buy banks

BY PETER EGWUATU

Asset Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON, yesterday, said it will exit its stake in the three recently acquired bridge banks in two years time, just as 21 firms have indicated interest to acquire stake in the banks.

It also stated that an additional N800 or N1.3 trillion will have to be injected into the troubled banks to make it a total of N1.5 trillion or N2 trillion at most depending on what will transpire at the forth coming court-ordered Extra Ordinary General Meeting, EGM, of the banks.

The three bridge banks are Main Street Bank (former Afribank Nigeria Plc), Keystone Bank (former Bank PHB Plc) and Enterprise Bank (former Spring Bank Plc)

Meanwhile, Intercontinental Bank Plc has an acquisition deal with Access Bank, Oceanic Bank is going along with Ecobank Transnational Incorporation, just as Union Bank, FinBank and Equatorial Trust Bank, ETB, signed deals with African Capital Alliance, First City Monument Bank Plc and Sterling Bank respectively.

Oceanic Bank International Plc, Finbank Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and Finbank Plc are to convene their court-ordered meetings in respect of their proposed recapitalisation respectively on September 27, 2011; September 29, 2011, September 30, 2011 and September, 29 2011.

In an interactive session with newsmen, Managing Director, AMCON, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi revealed that 21 firms have indicated their interest to acquire the three bridge banks, adding that 15 of them are foreign investors while six are local firms.

Chike-Obi said: “ AMCON has no intention to manage any bank, nor control its management but to ensure that credible people are in place to manage these banks in a professional manner to realise profit.

We will inject about N2 trillion if any of the shareholders disapprove of the merger scheme during the EGM, but if the EGM scale through with shareholders’ approval then we would only inject N1.5 trillion. Already we had injected about N700 billion into these banks, so additional N800 will be put into them to take the capital base to zero level from where the prospective investors will take over and manage them to a profitable level.”

Explaining the rationale for the CBN intervention in these banks, he said it was done in order to protect depositors and employees who would have been the worst hit if the banks were allowed to be liquidated. The CBN intervened in these banks as they were in serious bad condition with their capital base in negative position.