Two firms to compete for Petkim stakes

ISTANBUL-Hürriyet Daily News

Petkim, a strategic facility, is a petrochemicals firm in Turkey. Hürriyet photo

Socar-Turcas Joint venture and Naksan Plastik will compete for the remaining state share in Petkim, Hürriyet’s news portal reported yesterday.

The Privatization board called on both companies to bid for the 10.3 percent state stake tomorrow. The market capitalization of Petkim is about 2.2 billion liras.

Socar already owns 51 percent of Petkim, while Naksan is among the company’s customers.

The roots of Naskan Plastik go back to the 1940s, when the Nakıboğlu family first started their hardware store business in the southeastern province of Gaziantep. Today’s Naksan Plastik was founded in 1979.

The privatization process of Petkim started in 1987. Several attempts to block sales of Petkim stakes were not successful, before a 34.5 percent stake was sold through an initial public offering in April 2005.

The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (Socar) and Turkish company Socar established a venture acquiring the 51 percent stake in Petkim as the second highest bidder of the July 2007 tender. The winner of the tender, TransCentralAsia, was not granted the stake sales contract due to disputes over “the identity” of the joint venture.