Asset Management Corp. of Nigeria, a state-owned company, is seeking approval from the central bank to start the second phase of its progam to buy bad debts from banks, Chief Executive Officer Mustapha Chike-Obi said.

“Non-performing loans to be purchased under the second phase will be from the healthy banks and others we missed in the first phase,” Chike-Obi said in a telephone interview from Lagos today.

Amcon, as the company is known, on Dec. 31 signed debt purchase agreements with 21 of Nigeria’s 24 banks and issued 1.04 trillion naira ($6.8 billion) of so-called consideration bonds that are not tradable to buy non-performing loans from them. The corporation will begin negotiations with borrowers of the debts, he said.

The Central Bank of Nigeria in 2009 bailed out the banking industry with 620 billion naira and fired eight bank chiefs after a debt crisis threatened it with collapse.

Amcon delayed issuing 1.5 trillion naira of bonds on Jan. 31 because it had not obtained all regulatory approvals, Foluke Dosumu, executive director for finance, said that day. Part of the debt will replace the consideration bonds and will be tradable.

“The hard deadline” for the bond issuance is March 31, while the recapitalization of the bailed-out banks will be completed in the second quarter, Chike-Obi said today.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index climbed for a fourth day, rising 0.1 percent to 26,727.05 at 12:04 p.m. in Lagos.