Turkey’s Sabancı wants to make largest investment on energy in 2016: CEO

ISTANBUL

REUTERS photo

Turkish conglomerate Sabancı Holding has plans to make its largest amount of investments on energy in 2016, said Chief Executive Officer Zafer Kurtul on Feb. 29.

“Our holding will make 5 billion Turkish Liras [$1.7 billion] in investments in 2016. The lion’s share will be taken by our energy group over this year, and energy will be the driving force in our growth,” he said at a news conference following the release of the group’s 2015 earnings, as quoted by Reuters. 

He noted this planned investment amount did not include the total for acquisitions, adding the group has eyes abroad for acquisition opportunities in the cement business. 

Kurtul noted Sabancı Holding made a total of $11 billion of investments in the last five years. 

He said the holding wants to hold an initial public offering of its energy company and a secondary float of shares in its retail unit.
Istanbul-based Sabancı, which also has interests in banking, cement and cars, is uncertain of the timing of the offerings due to market conditions, he added.

Kurtul said their dollar-lira parity expectation is around 3.21 for the year-end and 3.07 for the mid-year. 

“We expect growth will mainly come from domestic demand again in 2016. Our GDP growth estimate is around 4 percent and the inflation rate at 9 percent,” he said, as quoted by news agencies.