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06.09.2000 Business & Finance

Liquidation of BHC, Co-operative Bank

06.09.2000 LISTEN
By Graphic

- ASSETS YIELD ¢108b

THE official liquidator of the Bank for Housing and Construction (BHC) Limited and the Ghana Co-operative Bank has so far realised ¢108 billion from the assets of the two state banks which were liquidated seven months ago.

The substantial recoveries from the assets of the two banks represent 90 per cent of total estimated target.

While ¢93 billion of the estimated ¢105 billion has been realised from the assets of BHC, ¢15 billion out of the estimated ¢17 billion has been realised from the assets of Ghana Co-operative Bank.

Mr. Felix Addo, a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, consultants to the Registrar General, the liquidator, announced this at the second creditors’ meeting of the two liquidated banks in Accra yesterday.

He said the asset realisation covers cash and short-term funds, loans, overdrafts and advances, long-term investments, equity investments, fixed and other assets.

Mr. Addo also announced that the government spent a total of ¢140 billion on the special depositors’ and employees’ schemes put in place by the government for the two banks at the initial stage of the liquidation process to absorb the shocks and impact of the liquidation on depositors, employees and the financial system in general.

He said while ¢86 billion and ¢17 billion were spent on the depositors and employees of BHC respectively, ¢28 billion and ¢9 billion was spent on their counterparts at the Co-operative Bank.

Mr. Addo said the total liquidation costs up to date stand at about ¢9.2 billion for BHC and ¢3.3 billion for Ghana Co-operative Bank.

On the specific details for BHC, he explained that the overall realisation on cash and short-term funds realised for BHC is about ¢68 billion and this exceeds the directors’ estimates by ¢7 billion.

He said the monies came from recovery of treasury bills, re-discounting of third party treasury bills and forex earnings on the strength of currencies held against the Cedi in the period after the liquidation.

With regard to the BHC loan recovery, Mr Addo said as result of the stringent measures adopted by the liquidator about ¢15 billion, representing 68 per cent of total recoveries of ¢22 billion have been collected from debtors.

“We will continue to pursue all debtors vigorously and hope to exceed the directors estimates by at least ¢10 billion since our forecast could be increased substantially if we are able to recover monies from the A-Life related accounts estimated at ¢43 billion, and which are the subject of criminal proceedings”, he added.

On the disposal of assets, Mr. Addo said 13 out of the 28 properties have been sold for about ¢7 billion, about ¢4 billion above the sales valuations.

“We are happy that workers of BHC were able to buy a substantial proportion of the properties so far sold”, he added.

Mr Addo said that the liquidator has, so far, paid two proven secured creditors of the BHC to the tune of ¢2.4 billion while as at 18 August 2000, about ¢43 billion had been paid to unsecured creditors.

On the specifics of the Co-operative Bank, Mr Addo said the rigorous loan recovery measures put in place by the liquidator have led to the recovery of ¢2.8 billion from debtors.

“This compares favourably with the estimates from the directors’ statement of affairs which estimated an overall recoverable sum of around ¢2.8 billion. We hope to exceed the directors’ estimates by at least ¢5 billion and possibly by as much as ¢15 billion if we are successful in recovering monies from A-Life”, he stated.

Mr Addo said two out of the 11 properties of the Co-operative Bank, made up of residential property at Bolgatanga and Co-op Guest House at Sekondi have been sold at ¢182 million while 11 out of its 20 vehicles have also been sold for ¢147 million.

The next meeting for creditors is scheduled for March next year.

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