JIMOH IBRAHIM’S NICON INSURANCE PLANS TO GET RID OF N20 BILLION ASSETS

Dr. Jimoh Ibrahim, Chairman, NICON Insurance Limited

The best-selling and most sought after online business news and articles publishers, Tectono Business Review, gathered that he NICON Insurance Limited, owned by a controversial lawyer and businessman, Dr. Jimoh Ibrahim, is perfecting plans to sell off N20 billion worth of its assets to meet financial obligations and regain its lost position.

This development was made known by the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Bayode Samuel, at the members' evening of the Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB) sponsored by the company. It took place at Insurance Brokers House, 58, Moleye Street, Alagomeji, Yaba, Lagos. Tectono Business Review’s Chief Ugwokeh Nnaemeka was there. According to Mr. Samuel, the company will get rid of N10billion worth of assets before December, 2015 while the remaining ones would be sold later. The new Commissioner of Insurance, Alhaji Mohammed Kari, also attended the event.

Mr. Samuel said that the decision of NICON Insurance to sell off its assets became necessary owing to the fact that some of them were no longer useful to the company, stressing that the proceed would be used to meet some of the company's obligations such as payment of outstanding claims to its clients ahead of regulator's deadline of September 30th and payment of commission to brokers. According to him, the company currently has outstanding claims of N466 million.

In Mr. Samuel’s own words: "If I have asset that is not yielding income and I don't need it in my book, the best thing is to turn it to cash and make income from that. We will use it to expand our operations get first hand IT, pay all outstanding claims and commissions, improve staff welfare, buy operational assets like new vehicles and new operational issues, those are the things needed by modern insurance companies that is responsive to clients need; so it will help you to respond almost immediately to your clients need.

“Our outstanding claims is N466million, so if I sell the one in broad street for N 700 million, it will take care of that, if I sell the one at Aso drive at N750 million it will take care of that and I have a lot of that listed for sell.  I will not fail to sell it I will meet the September 30th deadline. Immediately I took over I discovered that there are outstanding  account of 2012, 2013 and 2014  so I paid all the outstanding fees owed to auditors , got the accounts submitted got 2012 and 2013 approved.”

Mr. Samuel said that between now and ending of December, he would ensure that 2014 account was approved. He also spoke on the present state of the company which the present management had the mandate to turn around.

He said: “The new NICON is going to be a company that is solid in structures solid in personnel, good in processes, with supported processes that will be responsive to clients’ needs.”

According to him, the new management will make sure that the company bounces back to fore front of insurance industry as a company that is responsive to its stakeholders. He insisted that currently, the company is number one in  asset, adding that though  the premium income has dropped to N2 billion, the new management has projected that by the year  2016, the premium income will go up to N6 billion.