Turkey to delay lottery privatization

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

Potential investors had asked for the delay as the "global crisis is affecting privatization as much as any other sector," Kilci said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg late Saturday.

Turkey is offering a 10-year license to run the lottery as part of a program of asset sales designed to help reduce state debt. Milli Piyango, the lottery operator, had net income of 332 million liras ($220 million) in 2007 from gross sales of 1.2 billion liras, according to Treasury figures. It distributed 649 million liras in prize money.

Surprise-free market
The Milli Piyango offer gives investors access to a "clear and surprise-free" market and will be carried out successfully, "although until conditions improve we may be in a slower gear," Kilci said.

The asset sales agency on Nov. 4 gave potential investors until Jan. 15 to apply to take part in the auction, and until Feb. 27 to submit bids. Kilci did not specify the new timetable.

Companies including Athens-based Intralot and Turkey’s Koç Holding have said they may bid for Milli Piyango. Camelot Group, which holds the concession to run the U.K.’s national lottery, and Scientific Games Corp. may also bid, Milliyet newspaper said in July.

Other possible bidders include Essnet, Tatts Group, GTECH Holdings Corp., Lottomatica, Austrian Lotteries and Sisal, Milliyet said.

Other sales
Turkey will press ahead with plans to sell operating rights for highways and bridges and dispose of sugar factories and ports, Kilci said. In addition, the agency will offer some electricity distribution grids for sale in the first quarter of the year, though the process may not be completed until 2010, he said.

İskenderun Harbor is also to be privatized within this year, he said, adding that the handover of electricity distribution companies Başkent Elektrik, or EDAŞ, and Sakarya Elektrik, or SEDAŞ, are to be completed within the next month.

"I have a positive perspective for 2009," Anatolia news agency quoted Kilci as saying Friday. "That does not mean I am undervaluing the crisis. However, I believe even a halt in negative developments has a positive impact. I believe positive development will take place this year, and that the impacts of crisis will be diluted."