AMCON May Disengage Non-performing AMPs, Kuru Says
The Managing Director/CEO, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Mr. Ahmed Lawan Kuru, has disclosed that the corporation may disengage Asset Management Partners (AMPs) that cannot cope with the speed and enormous challenges of debt recovery expected by the corporation.
He also promised that the corporation may assign more accounts to AMPs that have shown aggression and zeal based on the review of the AMP scheme so far.
He made this declaration at the 2019 edition of the AMCON/AMPs Interactive/Feedback Session in Abuja.
AMPs, are consortiums appointed by AMCON after a rigorous selection process with specialist skills required to ensure recovery and debt resolution; banking, legal, valuation and accounting.
A statement quoted Kuru to have said the collaborating with AMPs became necessary because AMCON had total loan portfolio of over 12,000 loans of various sizes and sectors that are still lingering many years after the corporation was established. He stated that when this was compared to AMCON’s staff strength, it became obvious that the corporation surely needed a strategic approach to improve coverage, recovery and results.
Kuru, also disclosed that the AMPs are currently handling over 6,000 accounts within AMCON portfolio. Although in terms of weight, the accounts, which have been outsourced to AMPs constitute only 20 per cent or N740 billion of the total Eligible Bank Assets (EBA) portfolio of N3.7trillion.
AMCON, he insisted places equal importance on the recovery efforts as they count towards the achievement of the corporation’s core mandate.
To achieve the mandate as part of the corporation’s renewed strategy to resolve these loans, he said, AMCON in 2016 introduced the AMP scheme to assist the corporation’s recovery activities especially in tracing, identification and location of obligors with the intent to resolve their outstanding indebtedness; tracing, identification and location of assets of obligors (both pledged and unpledged) to enhance the EBA value, and achieve set recovery objectives.
The AMPs he further said were also empowered to enable them get involved in negotiation of settlement and restructuring terms with identified obligors in line with approved guidelines; pursuing & enforcing debt recovery and collection activities geared towards optimisation of assigned portfolio to achieve set targets and initiation of legal actions to further the loan recovery mandates in line with approved guidelines, amongst other obligor engagements.
