Foreign investors buy 20 percent of Turkish Ülker

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s Yıldız has sold a 20 percent stake in Ülker Bisküvi for $431 million. Company photo

Turkey’s Yıldız Holding said Oct. 4 that it has sold a 20 percent stake in Ülker Bisküvi for $431 million to foreign institutional investors from about 10 countries.

The money earned from the sale will be used in the existing investments of the unit Gözde Girişim and the parent company, the company said in a written statement.

The sale is the biggest non-banking stake sale in Turkey in the last three years. Yıldız, which also owns Godiva Chocolatier, said Ülker’s free float rate rose 42 percent after the sale.

Yıldız Holding announced earlier that it would sell a 10 percent stake, but then increased it to 20 percent to meet the higher demand and increase liquidity.

Demand from US

“Forty-four big institutional investors created around $1.3 billion of demand, but we have met about one-third of this demand,” said Yıldız Holding CFO Cem Karakaş.

All of the investors were from abroad, he added.

“London-based funds are very active in such transactions in Turkey, but a majority of demand came from the U.S.-based funds for Ülker stocks, as well as European and Far Eastern funds. There was no demand from the Gulf,” he said.

“We promised our shareholders that we would increase the liquidity in Ülker shares. Now we’re showing we have kept our promise. After the sale is completed, the daily transaction volume of Ülker shares will be over $10 million, we expect,” said Ülker CEO and head of Yıldız’s Food and Beverages, Mehmet Tütüncü, in a written statement released Oct. 4. He said their target was to reach 4.5 billion Turkish Liras in revenue in 2016 and 1 billion liras from the subsidiaries abroad.