Transfer of Türk Telekom’s majority stake to banks approved by Turkish gov’t

ISTANBUL

The Turkish Treasury and Finance Ministry has given the final approval paving the way for the transfer of a majority stake of Türk Telekom to a joint venture of creditor banks.

The Transport and Infrastructure Ministry notified the company owned by Saudi Oger of the Lebanese Hariri family.

“The takeover of Ojer Telekomünikasyon A.Ş.’s [OTAŞ] 55 percent shares in our company, Türk Telekomünikasyon A.Ş. [Türk Telekom] by a special purpose vehicle [SPV] which the creditor banks of OTAŞ would be shareholders, has been approved by the Treasury and Finance Ministry,” the company said in its statement to the Public Disclosure Platform on Aug. 29.

The Information Technologies and Communications Authority had approved the share transfer on Aug. 17.

OTAŞ had put up 55 percent of Türk Telekom shares as collateral for a loan of $4.75 billion in 2013.

After two years of negotiations regarding the failed repayments, creditor banks, including Akbank, Garanti and İşbank, applied to the Competition Board to take over the shares in July.

The banks will take over shares in proportion to the loan they had granted, according to the agreement facilitated by the Turkish government and several law and consulting firms. Akbank had granted a loan of nearly $1.5 billion, whereas Garanti had provided $1 billion and İşbank had provided $500 million.