Turkcell auditors call shareholder meeting

ISTANBUL - Reuters

Turkcell Chief Executive Sureyya Ciliv speaks at a meeting in Istanbul May 3. REUTERS photo

Turkcell’s auditors have called a shareholders’ meeting for June 29 after its divided board failed to do so, raising faint hopes that Turkey’s biggest mobile operator will finally agree to pay a dividend.

Nordic telecoms group TeliaSonera and Russia’s Altimo are locked in a string of legal battles to wrest control of Turkcell from the Turkish group Cukurova, chaired by Mehmet Emin Karamehmet.

The warring partners have kept investors waiting for a dividend payout on both the 2010 and 2011 earnings, and the failure of the board to call a general assembly this year persuaded the auditors to take the initiative.

Their agenda for the assembly includes approval of the firm’s 2010 and 2011 financial statements, dismissal of board members, and changes to the articles of association to raise the number of independent board members in order to meet Capital Markets Board regulations.

Though there is little certainty that the split board will propose a dividend payout, the prospect was enough to lift Turkcell’s share 1.5 percent to 8.28 Turkish Liras by 0920 GMT on June 1, outperforming the Istanbul benchmark index, which was down 0.6 percent.

“Considering that this general assembly was called by the independent auditors, not by the board, it should be expected that most of the agenda items will remain unapproved if the board cannot agree on the aforementioned items before June 29th - which was the case in the last three general assemblies,” Alper Özdemir of Oyak Securities wrote in a research note.