Turkey’s biggest mobile phone company intends to make a non-binding offer to buy the portion of TeliaSonera AB’s Fintur Holdings that it doesn’t already own to expand its holdings in carriers operating in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Moldova.
Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, as the Istanbul-based company is formally known, is seeking to buy 58.55 percent of Fintur owned by TeliaSonera, Turkcell said in a public offering on Wednesday. Turkcell didn’t provide details of the value of its offer. The Turkish carrier holds the remaining 41.45 percent of Rotterdam-based Fintur.
TeliaSonera’s Fintur stake is valued at 0.8 krona a share by Jon David Gjertsen, an analyst at Pareto Securities in Oslo, corresponding to about $430 million.
"In our view, it’s positive to see progress on the exit from the region,” Gjertsen said by e-mail.
Turkcell, in which TeliaSonera holds 38 percent, signed agreements to hire Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc to advise on a planned acquisition of Fintur, two people with knowledge of the matter said Nov. 17. Other Turkcell stakeholders include Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s investment company and Cukurova Holding AS.
Turkcell is looking to expand after the resolution of a decade-long boardroom deadlock among the three major shareholders that hobbled decision making and blocked dividend payments between 2010 and 2014. The impasse ended last year when regulators intervened and appointed new board members, while Cukurova’s repayment of a $1.6 billion loan to Fridman’s holding company in 2014 also eased tensions among the owners.
Turkcell intends to gain control of Fintur next year "if all the negotiations go well,” Chief Executive Officer Kaan Terzioglu told reporters Nov. 17 in Istanbul.
TeliaSonera, Sweden’s biggest phone company, said Sept. 17 it plans to exit Asia and ex-Soviet markets that account for almost a third of earnings to focus on business in Europe and its home Nordic region. TeliaSonera is embroiled in legal probes in Sweden, the Netherlands and with the U.S. Department of Justice over how it bought phone licenses in Uzbekistan in 2007.
Since the Sept. 17 announcement, the former Swedish phone monopoly has seen "big interest” for its operations in Eurasia, Henrik Westman, a spokesman, said by e-mail on Wednesday. "Turkcell is not the only one interested in Fintur. ”
(Bloomberg)
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