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Lagos - Nigeria's state-backed rescue bank AMCON retired 4.6878trn Nigerian naira worth of bonds on Monday, cutting its liabilities by more than half.
Spokesperson for the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Kayode Lambo, said by telephone that there remained 3.9trn naira of debt outstanding, which would be refinanced by the central bank at a low rate.
AMCON was set up to absorb bad debts left over from a 2008/9 financial crisis that nearly bankrupted nine lenders until the central bank bailed them out to the tune of $4bn, forcing many of them to restructure. Three were nationalised and AMCON took control of them.
Of the debt retired on Monday, 1.699trn naira had matured, while the remaining 2.988trn naira was being redeemed early, which the bank has the right to do in its agreement with creditors. AMCON said in November that bondholders would be repaid with cash and treasury bills.
"We're doing much better than we expected at this time, so we retired a lot of this debt early," Lambo said, adding that creditors would have a choice between taking cash or T-bills.
The "bad bank" last month reported a 2012 loss of 822.9bn naira after taxes, equivalent to a sixth of the country's federal budget, but a big improvement on 2011's loss of 2.37trn naira.
In its audited results, AMCON said it had restructured half of its portfolio of bad loans and that about half of those restructured assets were performing. About 300 to 400bn naira of its assets were in real estate, and about 200bn in equity of both listed and unlisted companies.
The bank is seeking prospective investors to buy 100% of Enterprise Bank, the first of three nationalised banks to be put up for sale.
Spokesperson for the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Kayode Lambo, said by telephone that there remained 3.9trn naira of debt outstanding, which would be refinanced by the central bank at a low rate.
AMCON was set up to absorb bad debts left over from a 2008/9 financial crisis that nearly bankrupted nine lenders until the central bank bailed them out to the tune of $4bn, forcing many of them to restructure. Three were nationalised and AMCON took control of them.
Of the debt retired on Monday, 1.699trn naira had matured, while the remaining 2.988trn naira was being redeemed early, which the bank has the right to do in its agreement with creditors. AMCON said in November that bondholders would be repaid with cash and treasury bills.
"We're doing much better than we expected at this time, so we retired a lot of this debt early," Lambo said, adding that creditors would have a choice between taking cash or T-bills.
The "bad bank" last month reported a 2012 loss of 822.9bn naira after taxes, equivalent to a sixth of the country's federal budget, but a big improvement on 2011's loss of 2.37trn naira.
In its audited results, AMCON said it had restructured half of its portfolio of bad loans and that about half of those restructured assets were performing. About 300 to 400bn naira of its assets were in real estate, and about 200bn in equity of both listed and unlisted companies.
The bank is seeking prospective investors to buy 100% of Enterprise Bank, the first of three nationalised banks to be put up for sale.
