By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Last month, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) revoked the operating license of Skye Bank Plc, announcing Polaris Bank Limited as a bridge bank.
The move by the apex bank generated mixed reactions with some observers pointing out that retaining the management of the Skye Bank appointed by the CBN to manage Polaris Bank was a wrong move.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg in Lagos, Managing Director of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Mr Ahmed Kuru, disclosed that the agency would sell off the bank in less than two years.
According to him, discussions have been held with the management of Polaris Bank and it was agreed that the “divestment must be quick” and must happen before 2021.
He said AMCON will advertise for financial advisers for the sale of Polaris Bank after an investigation into the cause of its capital and liquidity challenges, adding that individuals suspected to have contributed to Skye Bank’s collapse would be prosecuted with a view to recovering any bad loans linked to them.
Mr Kuru noted that Skye Bank was nationalise, “Because we have put a lot of money there, where we find out that something wrong has been done, I can assure you that people will be held responsible.”
He further explained that the intervention was also to save more than 5,000 jobs and almost N1 trillion in deposits.
The AMCON chief said the Nigerian authorities discovered “a lot of systemic issues” in Skye Bank, necessitating the takeover.
“It’s a very big bank and if you allow anything to happen to it, it will affect some other financial institutions,” he said, adding that AMCON has no plans to establish another rescue package for the country’s banks.
