Ghanaian asset managers with investments locked up in second-tier lenders whose licenses have been revoked asked the government to convert most of the five-year zero coupon bonds they were given as repayments into cash.
The request came two months after the state bailed out depositors with cash and bonds. The fund managers were paid 83 million cedis ($14.4 million) in cash, out of 1.87 billion cedis of investments tied up with the failed institutions, the Ghana Securities Industry Association, an umbrella body for money managers, said in a statement sent on Saturday.
“Our goal is for our numerous clients to be given a higher cash portion,” the group said. “An increase in the cash component of the payout will ease the already tight liquidity situation in the sector and provide relief to these clients. We are appealing to the government to urgently consider our request.”
Ghana closed down 23 savings and loans and finance houses in August, while the licenses of 386 micro-finance and micro-credit companies were revoked three months earlier. The government in February decided to bail out depositors in full, to the tune of 5 billion cedis with 1 billion cedis in cash and the rest in bonds. Fund managers got their bond payments in April, the GSIA said.
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