A special purpose vehicle created by three Turkish banks will sell its stake in Turkish telecommunications giant Türk Telekom.
The three lenders — Iş Bank, Garanti Bank and Akbank — appointed U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley to oversee a potential sale, the banks said Thursday in separate identical statements.
The SPV, Levent Yapılandırma Yönetimi A.Ş (Levent Restructuring Management – LYY), holds a 55% stake in Türk Telekom, which is valued at around $3 billion.
They said the required steps for the process and sale negotiations with potential buyers would begin.
Previously, the lenders conducted talks for a stake sale with potential buyers Saudi Telecom Company and Qatar-based Ooredoo but failed to reach agreement.
Türk Telekom shares were up 4.24% late Thursday.
OTAŞ, a unit of the Dubai-based Oger Telecom, had taken out a $4.75 billion loan in 2013 to acquire a 55% stake in Turk Telekom. But it failed to keep up payments on what at the time was Turkey's largest corporate loan. The SPV took control of the telecom company in December 2018.
Akbank, a subsidiary of Turkey's second largest conglomerate Sabancı Holding, holds 35.56% of the shares in the LYY. Garanti, owned by the Spanish banking giant BBVA, controls 22.13% and Iş Bank, Turkey's largest private bank, controls 11.60%.
Turkey's Treasury and Finance Ministry holds 25% of the remaining Türk Telekom shares. The Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF) controls 5%, in addition to 1.68% D-Group shares. The remaining 13.32% of the shares are on free float.
