20100816
africanews

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria's central bank has received bids for four of the nine lenders rescued in a $4 billion bailout last year, Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi told CNBC Africa television on Monday.

Sanusi said two foreign institutions were involved in the bidding process, as well as several local banks and private equity firms in partnership with foreign banks.

"The advisers have finished analysing bids already received for four of the banks. We expect the bids for the others to have been completed by the end of this month," Sanusi said.

He gave no further indication as to who the bidders were.

Nigeria is in the process of setting up an asset management company (AMCON) which will purchase non-performing loans with collateral and chase the recovery of the bad loans. It will also inject funds and take equity stakes if there are unsecured loans which need absorbing.

Sanusi said much work had been done in the last month to value the bad loans and gauge how much of them are unsecured.

He said a recommendation had been made to the president on the constitution of AMCON's board and was confident that once that was approved, deals to buy non-performing loans from the rescued banks could quickly be announced.

"I don't see any reasons why AMCON can't take these decisions in the next few weeks," he said, but added that the recovery of bad assets would take much longer.