After Mavi IPO, Turkven sets sights on bigger Medical Park listing, eyeing foreign investors

ISTANBUL-Reuters

Turkish private equity firm Turkven plans to hold a public offering next year for nearly half of healthcare provider Medical Park Group, Turkven’s chief executive said, a stake that might be worth close to $1 billion.

In an interview with Reuters, CEO Seymur Tari also said Turkven aimed for three to four acquisitions of $50 million to $400 million each in 2018 and hoped to start a new fund of more than $1 billion in one or two years.

Turkven completed an initial public offering of jeans brand Mavi in June, a 1.17 billion-lira ($334 million) floatation widely seen as a test of international demand for Turkish equities after last year’s abortive coup attempt and the widespread political crackdown that followed.

“We opened a door with Mavi,” Tari told Reuters.

“This will be the biggest IPO the market has seen in the recent years. We’ll attract a lot of foreign investors to Turkey.”

Jeans brand worn by celebrities

Since its June listing, shares of Mavi - a high-end jeans brand worn by celebrities such as Richard Branson and Kendall Jenner - have surged some 33 percent.

“The Medical Park offering will be three times the size of Mavi‘s,” Tari said.

That would put the floatation at around $1 billion, potentially the sixth-largest Turkish IPO in history, just behind the $1.1 billion listing of Vakıf Bank in November 2004, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Medical Park Group is the largest private hospital chain in Turkey, with more than 15,000 employees and 4,900 beds in 29 hospitals. Funds managed by Turkven hold a 53.4 percent stake in the company.

Turkven, which was founded in 2000, now manages more than $2 billion in assets. In addition to Mavi, the company this year listed DP Eurasia in London. It operates Domino’s Pizza franchises in Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

“We are less afraid of Turkey’s risks than foreign investors,” Tari said.

“So, we make better offers to companies. We’ve come to know Turkey better as we continued to invest.”

He said the high growth of the companies Turkven invested in helped to mitigate chronic weakness in the lira currency, pointing to both of Turkven’s recent listings.

“Mavi and DP are good examples of this,” he said.

“If you invest in the correct companies, you multiply your investment by eight or nine, so the Turkish lira in itself doesn’t constitute a problem.”