AMCON to Sell Off Polaris Bank Within Two Years

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Polaris Bank

The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has indicated that it wants to sell off Polaris Bank, formerly known as Skye Bank within two years.

AMCON said it wants a quick sale of the lender created to take over the assets and liabilities of the failed Skye Bank Plc.

This was revealed by the Chief Executive Officer, AMCON, Ahmed Kuru during an interview with Bloomberg Television in Lagos.

Mr. Ahmed Kuru said the divestment would be quick as the agency had met with the management of Polaris Bank and would sell the business in less than two years as the corporation had already set a 2023 deadline for dissolving the operations of Polaris Bank, although as it is still struggling to recover non-performing loans at the moment.

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After several years of barely hanging on to the edges of sane, modern banking, Skye bank eventually folded up last month when the Central Bank of Nigeria revoked its licence for failing to meet capital and liquidity requirements.

The Central Bank had further directed AMCON to capitalise Polaris Bank with N786bn ($2.2bn).

According to Kuru, Nigeria’s financial authorities intervened in Skye Bank because of a lot of systemic issues, including saving more than 5,000 jobs and almost N1tn in customer deposits.

“It is a very big bank and if you allow anything to happen to it, it will affect some other financial institutions. AMCON has no plans to establish another rescue package for the country’s banks.

The agency will advertise for financial advisers for the sale of Polaris Bank after an investigation into the cause of its capital and liquidity challenges. We will prosecute individuals suspected to have contributed to the bank’s collapse with a view to recovering any bad loans linked to them.” He stated.

Kuru also added that because a lot of money had been invested in the bank, people would be held responsible if AMCON found out if some wrong doing by the management had led to the collapse of the bank.

 

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