Turkey’s Akfen sells 40 pct stake in Mersin port to Australia’s IF Investors for $869 mln

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s Akfen Holding has announced it signed a deal to sell a 40 percent stake in the Mersin Port to Australia’s IFM Investors for $869 million. 

The share of Akfen in the port declined to 10 percent after the deal was signed. 

In a statement late on July 31, the company said Akfen Holding Chair Hamdi Akın would keep his chairmanship position in the port. 

Akfen Holding achieved to lure $1.2 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow into Turkey in 2017 through a number of deals, read the statement. 

The company made a block sale of its 33 percent stake in its renewable energy unit to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for $200 million and its 8.1 percent stake in TAV Airports to France’s Aeroports de Paris for $160 million. 

Akfen said all of these sale revenues would be used to realize the company’s recently announced 6.9 billion lira (nearly $2 billion) investment plan. 

Through this plan, the company has vowed to focus on its city hospital projects and renewable energy projects and to create 1,380 new jobs. 

Akfen invested $1.2 billion in the Mersin Port along with its partner, Singapore’s PSA International, since 2007, when they bought the operational rights from Turkey’s privatization authority for $755 million for a 36-year period, according to the statement.