Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at December 23rd, 2008

With local elections in March drawing near, the government has boosted spending to win hearts and minds of the electorate, just before the arrival of an expected delegation from the International Monetary Fund, or IMF.

Municipal investments have increased, despite a lack of resources, and the same is said for agricultural products. To push through the spending, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is said to have given directions to both public banks and the economy bureaucracy.

The AKP government authorized the Turkish Grain Board, or TMO, to purchase a weighty amount of hazelnuts, despite its healthy current stocks, over the last few years, thus excluding the Union of Hazelnut Sales Cooperatives, or Fiskobirlik. Now it is time to payback for the hazelnuts, and the government has started to force the payments without considering whether there are resources to so or not. But TMO is already heavily indebted due to agricultural product payments and is not capable of borrowing from external sources. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 23rd, 2008

There are about a dozen emerging economies that are on the verge of a potential financial crisis in 2009 including Turkey, New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini, one of the first to warn about the U.S. housing bust, said in an interview with Financial Times on Tuesday.

The year 2009 will be an economic stagnation and recession year for most of the global economy with deflationary pressures and a likely severe global recession, Roubini told FT adding that the return to positive economic growth would not be seen before 2010.

Emerging countries were another source of stress for the global economy, he also said.

“There are about a dozen of them that are on the verge of a potential financial crisis: Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine in emerging Europe . . . Pakistan, Indonesia or [South] Korea in Asia,” he said. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 13th, 2008

Mergers and acquisitions in emerging markets have stalled, according to third-quarter data revealed by ISI DealWatch. During the same period, 80 merger and acquisition deals were recorded in Turkey, totaling $10.21 billion. Privatizations, however, inflate the figure by $7 billion.

The global financial crisis has stalled mergers and acquisitions, or M&As, with the number of deals standing flat in the third quarter of the year, according to a study by a market expert.

ISI DealWatch, a leading information provider on emerging market M&A activity, registered 80 M&A deals for Turkey in the period, totaling $10.21 billion in value.

From January to September, the total M&A deal value in Turkey amounted to $22.8 billion, according to DealWatch data. The figure for all of 2007 stood at $30.2 billion. A total of 179 deals were reported from January to September, compared to 191 last year. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 13th, 2008

Moonlight, a subsidiary of the private equity firm BC Partners, has pushed the button for a merger operation with Turkey’s leading retailer, Migros Türk.

During a meeting Dec. 5, the Migros board decided on the merger of the company via a takeover by the Moonlight’s Turkish unit, Moonlight Perakendecilik. The merger will take place on the basis of Migros’ consolidated financial statements dated Sept. 30, according to the statement by Migros.

All assets and liabilities on the company’s balance sheet will be transferred to Moonlight as a whole. Bülent Özaydınlı, Evren Rıfkı Ünver and Ömer Özgür Tort have been authorized to deal with all the remaining issues that need to be resolved to complete the merger. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 13th, 2008

Troubled by stagnation and decreasing demand, Turkish construction companies in Russia have slowed operations after being hit by the current global financial turbulence, leaving 20,000 Turkish workers without jobs in the past two months.

Affected badly by the crisis, the construction sector in Russia has plunged. Investments have been either interrupted or canceled, and most construction projects have been delayed, leaving investors with no choice but to cut expenditures. Turkish construction companies in Russia have had difficulty getting paid as problems emerge in the country, and they have also suspended operations. Turkish construction companies mostly work with the private sector in Russia because the state gives priority to local companies when launching construction projects.

Turkish companies in Russia undertake the construction of certain building projects such as shopping malls, factories and neighborhoods. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 13th, 2008

Vodafone has picked China’s Huawei Technologies (HWT.UL) to supply infrastructure equipment for the global mobile phone operator’s planned third-generation (3G) network in Turkey, a senior executive said on Friday.

Vodafone, Turkcell and Avea, the three GSM operators in Turkey, each won high-speed 3G mobile phone network licenses after the tender held on Nov. 28. Vodafone won the tender for the Type B (35 MHz) license, paying 250 million euros for its 3G contract. The Type A (40 MHz) license went to Turkcell while Avea got the Type C (30 MHz) license. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 12th, 2008

The Turkish lira firmed 2 percent on Friday against the dollar when financial markets re-opened after a four-day religious holiday, while stocks traded steady.

Failure to pass a $14 billion carmaker bailout in the U.S. Senate pushed up U.S. government debt and dragged down the dollar in global markets. The dollar fell to below 90 yen , its lowest in 13 years.

The lira traded at 1.5530 against the dollar on the interbank market in morning trade, down 2 percent from 1.5840 a week ago. The main Istanbul share index rose 0.59 percent to 24,177 points, outperforming the MSCI index of emerging market shares which traded 3.31 percent lower.

Turkish markets were closed from Monday to Thursday for a public holiday to mark the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast. (more…)

Posted by meb at December 12th, 2008

Foreign Trade Minister Kürşad Tüzmen has said Turkey’s exports will exceed $125 billion by the end of 2008 and that this will lead to a decline in the current account deficit of the country.

As the global economic crisis continues to bite into foreign trade worldwide, Turkey’s exports declined both in October and November.

However, it is not only exports that are declining in Turkey. The drop in the country’s imports is actually higher than the decline in its exports. Deteriorating parallel with the rising global financial crisis, Turkey’s imports declined nearly $5 billion. The country’s imports are expected to decline $50 billion next year, State Minister Kürşad Tüzmen said.

Turkey’s imports had reached $19 billion to $20 billion prior to October. That figure has declined severely within the past two months. Turkey’s imports in October totaled $14.7 billion and based on preliminary calculations, the country’s imports in November declined to $12.6 billion. The figures show a decline of $5 to $6 billion in monthly imports. (more…)