NEW YORK-Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S., the largest of Turkey’s two operating Global System for Mobile communications carriers, raised about $1.9 billion in its initial public offering last week.
Goldman Sachs International and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter were joint global coordinators for the sale, which comprised an 11-percent interest in the carrier. Each of the 96,000 American Depository Receipts was priced at $17.60, at the low end of the expected range of $16.49 to $20.07.
Turkcell is owned 50.46 percent by Cukurova Group Holding, a family-owned company that is Turkey’s largest conglomerate. Cukurova’s stake in the wireless provider decreased to approximately 42 percent after the IPO. Sonera, Finland’s largest telecommunications company, owned 41 percent of Turkcell before the offering and about 37 percent afterward.
Turkcell stock also now trades on the exchange in Istanbul. The IPO was oversubscribed three times by foreign investors and one-and-a-half times by Turkish investors.
Turkcell customers comprise 6.2 million of the 10 million wireless subscribers in the country. Securities for the only other Turkish GSM operator, Telsim, which is majority owned by the Rumeli Group, are not publicly traded.
In April, a consortium of Telecom Italia and Bankasi of Turkey won a $2.53 billion bid for a third GSM license, and it plans to commence commercial operations in December.
Turk Telekom, the state-owned landline telecommunications monopoly, is expected to be awarded a fourth wireless license later this year in advance of its planned 20 percent privatization.
