Turkish government may slow asset sales

Bloomberg

refid:10836489 ilişkili resim dosyası

The agency will give investors more time to consider bids for items such as power grids and sugar factories, Kilci said in an interview at his office in Ankara late Wednesday.

"We will be more careful in gauging the mood in the market," he said. "Sale preparations and auctions will take a little more time."

Turkey is seeking revenue from state asset sales to help pay for the increased spending it has earmarked to sustain economic growth as the credit crisis cuts demand for exports.

The government hasn’t set a goal for revenue from the asset sales this year for the first time since it came to power in 2002. It raised $6.3 billion last year.

The fiscal deficit widened 25 percent to 17.1 billion ($10.4 billion) last year after revenue from asset sales. It will probably widen further this year after economic growth slowed to 0.5 percent in the third quarter, the slowest annual pace in six years.

On Jan. 6, the government postponed the deadline for final bids for the national lottery by six weeks to April 15 to give investors more time to consider offers.

"As we approach April 15 we may be forced to re-evaluate if market conditions change, but interest in the national lottery is very strong right now," Kilci said.

Alarko Holding, a Turkish industrial group, said Jan. 20 that it would bid for the lottery with Greece’s OPAP, Doğuş Holding and Fina Holding, which is owned and managed by Özyeğin family members.
Kilci declined to say how many other companies might place bids.

The sales of two power distributors in Ankara and the northwestern region of Sakarya will probably be completed within three weeks, Kilci said. Buyers will make an advance payment of 50 percent of the purchase price and pay the remainder in installments.

Austria’s Verbund and Turkey’s Ömer Sabancı Holding won an auction for the electricity network in Ankara with a bid of $1.23 billion. CEZ and its Turkish partner Akenerji Elektrik Üretim won the bidding for $600 million for the grid in Sakarya.

The government will put two more power grids up for sale at the end of February or start of March, Kilci said. Turkey will sell a network in the west of the country -- either in the region of Trakya or in Uludağ -- and one in central Anatolia or the east of the country, he said.