AMCON wants to recover its money and close shop
In this exclusive interview by Financial Nigeria editors, Mr. Ahmed Kuru, Managing Director, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), discusses the successes and recovery efforts of AMCON as well as the outlook of the ‘bad bank’ over the next three years.
Financial Nigeria (FN): The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria was set up for the specific need of helping to clean up the balance sheets of Nigerian banks in the wake of the 2008 – 2009 financial crisis. This assignment should have been over by now, going by the original plan. What is your view on the sunset for AMCON?
Ahmed Kuru (AK): At the conceptualisation stage, it was envisaged that within a period of 10 years, AMCON should be able to wind down. This was based on certain assumptions. Firstly, the banking industry was projected to grow at a rate of 20%. Secondly, inflation was expected to be controlled, presupposing that the value of the underlying assets will go up. Thirdly, it was assumed that the economy would pick up quickly.
Unfortunately, most of those assumptions didn’t play out. Several years after AMCON was set up, the Nigerian economy was still facing some challenges. As a result, the banking industry didn’t grow as it was envisaged. The highly leveraged businesses also didn’t improve as expected.
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