14 Nisan 2011 Perşembe

Turkish, foreign firms meet at M&A forum in Istanbul


GÖKHAN KURTARAN
This photo shows a scene from the office of PDF Corporate Finance, one of the two organizers of the forum.

This photo shows a scene from the office of PDF Corporate Finance, one of the two organizers of the forum.
There is a wide range of possibility in Turkey for global mergers and acquisitions, according to finance industry experts and leaders who attended the Merger & Acquisitions Forum in Istanbul on Friday.

The forum brought together nearly 200 professionals from 40 countries under the theme of “opening doors, closing deals” and was said to offer new growth opportunities for the Turkish business world and foreign investors.

“Turkey offers great potential for mergers and acquisitions since the country showed signs of exiting the crisis,” said Levent Bosut, the managing director of PDF Corporate Finance and member of M&A International Inc.
“Turkey broke its record in 2005 by reaching a total of $30 billion in mergers and acquisitions,” Bpsut, who is also che chairman of the Venture Capital Association of Turkey, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Reviews.
“The total amount of mergers and acquisitions decreased 65 percent due to the global economic crisis,” he said.
The total value of transactions was only $5 billion in last year.
The dark picture has been changing for Turkey recently and many companies are in search of acquisitions in emerging markets, such as Turkey, Bosut told the Daily News.

The total value of mergers and acquisitions will reach $10 billion in Turkey by the end of this year. “If we’re lucky, we’ll see a total amount of nearly $15 billion in 2011,” he said.

Bosut said energy privatization carries a great importance for M&A interest in Turkey. “If the government’s privatization policies for energy, particularly electric generation and distribution facilities, continue, then the total amount could easily reach nearly $20 billion by next year,” he said.

Bosut said Turkish banks are more willing to finance the companies who would like to merge in recent years. “Different than European banks, Turkish banks financed nearly $60 million of the total cost of $100 million last year.”

“Nearly 50 percent of the Turks are employees whereas 80 percent of the population consists of employees in Europe,” Sanjeev Kathpalia, chairman of PDF Corporate Finance told the Daily News. He said the low percentage of employees in Turkey shows that Turkey has many millions of entrepreneurs who have their own businesses that could create “great dynamism in the country.”

Talking to journalists, Scott Hardman, managing director of corporate finance for Alexander Hutton, said over the last 30 years the idea of selling a company ahs changed from “a sign of failure.”
“Nowadays if no one wants to buy your company, then that is the real problem,” he said.
At the press conference, Hardman, who is also the chairman of M&A International, said they achieved M&As worth nearly $100 billion in last five years. Noting that M&A International operates in 43 countries, he said, “We would like to use our experience in Turkey to create a base for companies that aim to grow through M&As.”

According to official sources, the total amount of mergers and acquisitions was only $1.2 billion in 2003 and the amount reached $2.6 billion in 2004. The total amount of M&As increased $30 billion in 2005. The decline tendency started in 2006 with $18.3 billion in 2006 and the total amount decreased to $5.7 billion, according to crisis-hit figures of 2009.

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