Bank Asya shares continue boom despite brief halt by Borsa Istanbul

ISTANBUL

The Islamic lender, whose founders are known to be close to Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen, has been in focus since Turkish media reported state-owned companies and institutional depositors loyal to PM Erdoğan had withdrawn 4 billion liras.

Borsa Istanbul briefly stopped trading Islamic lender Bank Asya shares in the morning due to unprecedented fluctuations in its value, which have been ongoing for the past four days since Qatari Islamic Bank announced partnership talks.

Borsa Istanbul had announced Bank Asya’s trading was stopped by the Automatic Session Shutdown System until 09:51 am due to extraordinary price-amount moves in the shares’ market.
The shares of the lender, which rose 53 percent over the past three days since March 25, continued its remarkable upsurge when it resumed trade.

The shares that were traded at 1.67 Turkish Liras with a 4.37 percent rise before the halt had raised gains by over 8 percent as of 11:30 am at a share price of 1.73 liras.

Bank Asya on March 25 said it had started talks on a strategic partnership with the QIB and planned to complete the process soon.

A day after the announcement, the QIB also confirmed the news, saying the parties are in talks over the possibility of a stake acquisition.

The Islamic lender, whose founders are known to be close to Islamic Scholar Fethullah Gülen, has been in focus since Turkish media reported state-owned companies and institutional depositors loyal to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had withdrawn 4 billion liras ($1.8 billion), or some 20 percent of the bank’s total deposits.

The lender managed to avoid a major crisis after the withdrawal that was confirmed by its managers, as well as by making a cash capital increase of 33 percent to 1.2 billion liras ($515 million) and selling an 18 percent stake in retailer Yeni Mağazacılık (A101) for 298 million liras.