Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) said it has bought Non Performing Loans (NPL) worth N1 trillion ($6.5 billion) under the second phase of its mandate of cleaning the banking industry.

Bloomberg quoted the AMCON’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mustapha Chike-Obi to have disclosed this Thursday.

Chike-Obi said: “We have bought all the eligible non-performing loans offered to us by the banks. The latest debt purchases have a face value of “about 500 billion naira.

The AMCON boss further revealed that the corporation will issue N1.7 trillion bonds on April 6. AMCON had delayed issuing N1.5 trillion bonds on January 31 because it had not obtained all regulatory approvals. Part of the debt will replace the so-called consideration bonds which it had issued to banks that sold N1.04 trillion of debts to AMCON on December 31.

“We are going to issue at this point, a shelf-registration of N3tn, but we are going to issue about N1.7tn bonds on April 6. “The purpose is to replace the N1.1tn consideration bonds that were issued on December 31, 2010, and to buy the new N600bn NPLs in the second phase,” Chike-Obi said.