Turkey Financial News

Posted by meb at September 6th, 2008

General Electric, the world’s biggest maker of power generation equipment, still plans to submit a bid to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant even though it will probably miss a Sept. 24 government deadline.

GE’s nuclear venture with Hitachi, Japan’s third-largest builder of atomic plants, is working on a bid with partners Turkey’s Sabancı Holding and Spain’s Iberdrola, Jack Fuller, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

“We are preparing the proposals, I just don’t think it can be completed before Sept. 24,” he said Wednesday in London. “The government also wants competition. They want multiple providers of nuclear technology. So if they only get, let’s say, one on the 24th, then that probably won’t satisfy their needs anyway.” (more…)

Posted by meb at September 5th, 2008

General Electric, the world’s biggest maker of power generation equipment, still plans to submit a bid to build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant even though it will probably miss a Sept. 24 government deadline, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.

GE’s nuclear venture with Hitachi, Japan’s third- largest builder of atomic plants, is working on a bid with partners Turkey’s Sabanci Holding and Spain’s Iberdrola, Bloomberg reported Jack Fuller, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s chief executive officer as saying.

“We are preparing the proposals, I just don’t think it can be completed before September 24,” he said adding that “The government also wants competition. They want multiple providers of nuclear technology. So if they only get, let’s say, one on the 24th, then that probably won’t satisfy their needs anyway.”

Turkey is among the governments worldwide leaning toward nuclear power to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, blamed for global warming, and as fossil fuel prices surge. (more…)

Posted by meb at September 4th, 2008

Turkish TAV Airports Holding has won a tender for the operation of two airports and construction of a new cargo terminal in Macedonia, Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The company had not yet received official notification of the award, TAV said in a statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange.

Last week the company said it was the sole bidder in the tender, which included the rights to operate two international airports at Skopje and Ohrid for 20 years as well as to construct Shtip airport’s cargo terminal. (more…)

Posted by meb at September 1st, 2008

Europe’s biggest betting firm OPAP plans to bid for Turkey’s national lottery Milli Piyango in a joint venture with Turkish business groups, its chief executive said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday.

As betting markets around the world are liberalized, Greece’s OPAP is looking for expansion opportunities to offset any loss of local market share after its monopoly rights expire in 2020.

‘We want this project, we want to get into the largest market in southeast Europe, we have the ability to take over (the lottery) but we are not ‘rabid’ to do it at any cost,’ OPAP Chief Executive Christos Hadjiemmanuil told Kathimerini newspaper.

Milli Piyango made sales of 459.8 million YTL ($388.2 million) in 2008 and net profit of $331.8 million. (more…)

Posted by meb at August 28th, 2008

The Inteltek venture of Greece’s Intralot and Turkish mobile phone operator Turkcell made the best bid on Thursday in a tender to operate the Turkish sports betting company Iddaa.

Tender commission Chairman Mustafa Turgut said Inteltek, current operator of Iddaa, had made an offer to take 1.4 percent of revenue under the revenue-sharing scheme, the lowest of three offers, in the final round of bidding.

The tender is subject to the approval of regulatory bodies. It approved then Inteltek will be given the rights to operate the company under the 10-year deal. (more…)

Posted by meb at August 15th, 2008

Gaz de France submitted the highest bid of $232 million in a tender for the privatisation of the İzmit gas distribution company (Izgaz).

Under the tender, the whole of the gas distribution firm in northwestern Turkey will be sold off in a block sale. In the open auction session broadcast live by CNBC-e, local Zorlu Enerji withdrew from the tender. The energy regulator EPDK and the competition board have to approve the tender before the distribution network is taken over by the private sector. (more…)

Posted by meb at August 13th, 2008

The Turkish State Railways (TCDD) has entered a new era in the country’s 100-year-old railway system by proceeding with a project to lay a second track next to the country’s current one-way railroad as part of efforts to retrofit the system.

The Ministry of Transportation decided to upgrade the country’s railway system, a project that has been postponed for many years, after observing the success of double lane highways in the country, which were constructed after the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power in 2002. All new railways to be constructed will have two sets of tracks, as is the case with the Ankara-İstanbul and Ankara-Konya high-speed train tracks. The project also involves improving the current railway network by constructing a second railway track alongside current tracks. The TCDD plans to construct a second track on the 193-kilometer-long Ankara-Kayseri, Kayseri-Divriği, Kayseri-Ulukışla-Yenice and Konya-Karaman-Ulukışla tracks, which form the core of the freight business in Turkey. The project is expected to be completed in 10 years in three phases. (more…)

Posted by meb at August 13th, 2008

Dogan Yayin Holding, Turkey’s biggest media group, bid for the rights to run the sports-betting game, Iddaa, together with Italy’s Lottomatica Videolot Gestione SpA and SNAI SpA, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Dogan will have a 50 percent stake in the consortium, while its Italian partners, Lottomatica Videolat SpA and SNAI SpA, will hold 47 percent and 3 percent of shares respectively, the statement made to the Istanbul Stock Exchange said. (more…)