While nine banks published the names of the loans defaulters on
Monday, four banks released the lists of their chronic debtors,
owing a total of N143.81bn, on Tuesday.
The four banks are First Bank, Access Bank, Diamond Bank and
Unity Bank.
The banks, which had published the list of their delinquent debtors
on Monday were Zenith Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Union
Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc,
Stanbic IBTC Bank, Heritage Bank Limited and Enterprise Bank
Limited.
First Bank, which has its total amount of non-performing loans as
N43.72bn, published 92 names of delinquent debtors.
The first five companies on the lender’s list owe a combined sum of
N23bn. These are Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, Starcomm Plc;
BGL Securities Limited, where a former Minister of Finance and
National Planning, Kalu Idika Kalu, is a director; Shield Petroleum
Limited and Fargo Petroleum and Gas Limited.
Shield Petroleum, the number one on the list, owes N6.883bn; while
Zurich International Service, the last on the list, owes N26.69m.
Unity Bank also released 260 names of delinquent debtors with a
combined NPL figure of N45.52bn.
The list has the companies of some prominent Nigerians. These
include Umar Mutallab’s DeanShanger Project Limited, N3.6bn;
Senator Ayodele Arise and a former Minister of State for Works, Mr.
Dayo Adeyeye’s International Payment Devices Limited, N81.9m;
and Prince Adeyanju Olateru-Olagbegi’s Cupid Investment BDC,
N90.1m.
According to PUNCH, other prominent companies on the list are
Ekiti Kete Mass Transit, which owes N991m; Fargo Petroleum and
Gas Limited, N2.5bn; Ava Cement Limited, N.8bn; and Plywood
Chemical and Accessories, N1.1bn.
Ava Cement topped Unity Bank’s debtors’ list with N9.8bn, while
Malcolm Akpokodje owes the least with N20m.
Access Bank Plc published a list of 11 delinquent debtors, with a
combined NPL figure of approximately N3.4bn.
Top on the list are Bioka Ventures Limited, which owes N1.15bn,
while Derukas International Limited was last on the list with a debt
of N56.3m.
Diamond Bank Plc has N47.17bn as its total NPLs, with companies
belonging to prominent Nigerians owing sizeable amounts.
These include Sir Emeka Offor’s Global ScanSystem Limited, which
the bank says owes N181m; a former Chairman, House of
Representatives Committee on the Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-
Erewa’s Thriller Eneavours, which owes N122m; and a former Delta
State Commissioner for Sports Solomon Ogba’s Delta Mega Trend
Limited, which owes N89m.
Aside the 13 banks which have published their debtor lists, other
banks which will publish theirs this week are Ecobank Nigeria, First
City Monument Bank Limited, Standard Chartered Bank, Keystone
Bank Limited, United Bank for Africa Plc and Wema Bank Plc.
Investigations by our correspondents on Monday revealed that most
of the banks had cut their list of delinquent debtors due to litigation
with their customers over disputes arising from loan terms and last-
minute renegotiations by some clients.
A top bank executive, who spoke to one of our correspondents
under the condition of anonymity, said, “Some of the banks have to
remove the list of some clients due to issues that border on
litigation.
“Some names were removed at the last minute after the affected
customers came to renegotiate with us. Some banks have had to
cut the names on their debtors’ list by at least 50 per cent.”
Officials of banks, who spoke to our correspondents, linked the
relatively high figure of the NPLs in some banks to inside
connivance with customers, lingering margin loans and huge oil and
gas-related loans.
According to them, customer relationship managers in some of the
banks connived with the customers to obtain huge loans that
eventually became bad.
They also said that long-standing margin loans in some banks were
responsible for the high figure.
“A huge chunk of the loans are oil and gas related. The drop in oil
prices has also worsened the situation for some oil and gas
companies. They borrowed relatively large amounts of money,
which later became bad loans,” an official of a tier-1 bank told our
correspondent.
Meanwhile, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria will
publish the list of its debtors early next week if they fail to regularise
the terms of their loans with the agency.
The spokesperson for AMCON, Mr. Kayode Lambo, who confirmed
this on Monday, said companies which failed to regularise the terms
of their loans with the agency would have their names published.
“As many companies who have not been servicing their loans will
have their names published,” he added.
The names of firms belonging to prominent Nigerians who have not
been servicing their loans may appear on the list.
In 2009, the Federal Government spent about N5tn to buy the NPLs
from banks to save them from imminent collapse.
AMCON, the government agency created after the 2009 banking
crisis, was the special purpose vehicle used to acquire the NPLs
from the banking sector.
The Central Bank of Nigeria had on April 22, 2015 directed the
banks, discount houses and AMCON to publish the list of delinquent
debtors from August 1.
They are to publish the names in at least three national newspapers
on a quarterly basis.
In line with the directive, the banks gave the chronic debtors a
three-month grace period, which expired on July 31.
The Director, Banking Supervision, CBN, Mrs. ‘Tokunbo Martins, had
in a circular dated April 22, 2015, said, “In order to ensure that the
industry NPL ratio does not exceed the prudential limit of five per
cent and to improve the credit culture in the banking industry, banks
and discount houses are directed to observe prudent credit
underwriting and monitoring standards.”
The debtors are those whose accounts have been classified as lost
and include persons, entities, directors, subsidiaries and other
related parties, according to the central bank.
The central bank had stated that delinquent debtors in the category
described above would be blacklisted and “banned from
participating in the Nigerian foreign exchange market and in the
Nigerian government securities market.”
Already, Abike Dabiri has reacted, saying she is not owing anyone. I
guess other reactions will follow.
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