Turkey To Hold Turk Telekom Secondary Public Offering by End of 2013

By Yeliz Candemir

ISTANBUL--Turkey will hold a secondary public offering for a 6.68% stake in Turk Telekom (TTKOM.IS) by the end of this year, reducing its share in the fixed-line phone company to 25%, according to a cabinet decision published in government journal Official Gazette on Wednesday.

In December, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek said the government may initially decrease its 31.68% stake in Turk Telekom to 25%. The majority stake is owned by Dubai-based Oger Telecom.

Earlier in January, Mr. Simsek said privatizations would also resume at a healthy pace following previous years' shortcomings. Turkey has already transferred $4.2 billion in privatization revenue to the government budget in anticipation of more than $4 billion in privatization proceeds in 2013.

Turkey completed its largest-ever share sale in November, with 4.51 billion lira ($2.5 billion) raised by an oversubscribed secondary public offering of one-fifth of state-owned bank Halkbank. That topped Turkey's previous largest share sale of a 15% stake in Turk Telekom in 2008, which raised $1.9 billion.

Write to Yeliz Candemir at [e-mail]

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