Abraaj manages ‘over 1 bln funds’ in Turkey

Abraaj Group Turkey and Central Asia region chief Selçuk Yorgancıoğlu noted that after the Fibabanka transaction, the total portfolio of the group in Turkey surpassed $1 billion. 

“The terror attacks or political issues do not affect our investment plants. We believe that the Turkish economy has been run successfully in macro terms despite terror attacks or the neighboring risks,” he said, also praising the robust structure of the banking sector thanks to a number of comprehensive reforms, which were made after the 2002 banking crisis. 

“One of the most important criteria for us is the budget deficit to the GDP. This is around -1.8 percent in Turkey, although it is around -3 percent in Europe. We do not see any serious problems in Turkey in macroeconomic terms,” added Yorgancıoğlu. 

Abraaj, which runs $9.5 billion worth of funds across the world, has been investing in Turkey since 2008, and its diversified portfolio includes leading e-commerce business Hepsiburada, dairy manufacturer Yörsan Group and BRN Sleep Products

The group made investments into 11 companies in Turkey in total, and exited from some five of them in time. 

“We usually invest in companies which can be safer against any economic or political fluctuations… We stay in a company for an average of three to three-and-a-half years. We exit the companies to make investments in others,” Yorgancıoğlu said. 

He also noted that the group learned a lot from the female bosses of two companies in which they made an investment, namely Hepsiburada.com founder and Doğan Online chair Hanzade Doğan Boyner and BRN Sleep Products founder Berna İlter. 

More than 16 million people visit Hepsiburada.com on a monthly basis and around 2 million people shop via the website, Yorgancıoğlu said, adding the share of e-commerce in retail was around 1.6 percent in Turkey, lower than the European and U.S. average.

“This shows there is a huge growth potential in Turkey’s e-commerce sector,” he added.