Turkey to gather bids for Halkbank IPO in May
Posted by meb at March 10th, 2007
Turkey plans to collect the first bids for an initial public offering of state lender Halkbank in late May, Economy Minister Ali Babacan said on Friday.
“We see no obstacles against doing this,” Babacan told a news conference where he also gave the bank’s net profit in 2006 as YTL 863 million ($607.53 million).
The government had previously said it would sell 25 percent of Halkbank in an IPO, reversing an earlier plan to sell a controlling stake in the bank during an election year.
Halkbank’s assets stood at YTL 34.425 billion in end-2006, Babacan said.
Turkey said last year it would sell a majority stake in the bank, but after a court blocked the privatization, parliament had to pass a new law to enable it to go ahead.
Halkbank was seen as one of the last sizeable banks available in the fast-growing European Union candidate country, and its privatization by a block sale had attracted strong interest from abroad.
Turkey’s parliament is due to elect a new president in May, which some analysts expect to stir volatility in the market, but the new candidate is due to be in office by the end of May.
source: Turkish Daily News
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