A total of 32 petroleum product storage tanks worth several billions of naira have been put up for sale by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, the agency created by the Federal Government to absorb bad loans from Deposit Money Banks’ books after the 2009 banking crisis.
AMCON, in a newspaper advertorial on Monday, invited interested members of the public to submit bids for the purchase of the tank farms located in Ibafon, Apapa area of Lagos State.
A tank farm or oil depot, is a facility for storage of liquid petroleum products or petrochemicals.
The decision apparently followed the failure of the oil companies to pay up their debts four years after AMCON took over their non-performing loans from commercial banks.
Although AMCON did not mention the names of the oil companies, which originally owned the tank farms which it had taken over, investigations showed that the tank farms belonged to Zenon Petroleum and Gas, Acorn Petroleum, Aquitaine Oil and Gas.
A top official of Zenon confirmed that the firm and AMCON had reached an agreement on the transfer of the assets to the corporation.
Acorn and Aquitaine could not be reached as of press time.
Reports have, however, indicated that AMCON has entered into asset transfer agreements with most of the oil companies.
However, sources close to the development confirmed that the proposal for the sale of the tank farms followed the conclusion of lease agreements that AMCON had signed with some companies to put the tank farms into use.
The bad debt manager appointed the estate surveying and valuation firm of Ubosi Eleh and Co. as the sales agent to oversee the asset disposal process.
According to AMCON, the deadline for the submission of bids for interested investors is November 30, 2015.
The advertorial read in part, “The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, in fulfilment of its objectives and exercise of its statutory duty to efficiently resolve eligible bank assets purchased from various eligible financial institutions in Nigeria, hereby offers tank farms located at Ibafon, Apapa, Lagos for sale for interested members of the public.”
The agency noted that entities or companies interested in buying the tank farms must not be indebted to AMCON, adding that the directors of such companies must also not be indebted to the corporation.
The corporation was established on July 19, 2010 with the signing of the AMCON Act into law.
AMCON was created to be a key stabilising and re-vitalising tool to revive the financial system by efficiently resolving the non-performing loan assets of banks in the Nigerian economy.
