BGC Voice and Electronic Brokerage

Akfen Holding, a Turkish construction company, plans to sell a stake of its real estate investment unit worth roughly $400 million on Istanbul’s stock market this, it said Monday.

The Ankara-based company may sell 25 to 49 percent of Akfen GYO, Akfen Holding Chairman Hamdi Akın said Monday at a meeting in Istanbul, where he also announced a bond sale. Capital markets legislation will likely require the company to apply to the regulator before August for the initial public offering, or IPO, he said.

Turkey will probably have more IPOs this year, mostly among real estate investment trusts as the global appetite for deals recovers, said broker BGC Partners’ Istanbul unit in a January report.

It has projected initial and secondary offerings valued at $4.7 billion this year.

Akfen GYO agreed with Accor, Europe’s largest hotelier, in 2005 to set up 85 hotels in Turkey and Russia by 2019, adding to the nine lodges the two companies operate in Turkey. Akfen GYO, in which Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bought a 45 percent stake from Akfen Holding in 2007, has also residential projects in Istanbul, Akın said.

Akfen Holding will sell 100 million Turkish Liras of two-year bonds that will yield 11.55 percent annually to individual and institutional investors this week, with the proceeds being used mainly for energy investments, Akın said.

Akfen Holding will also build a 450-megawatt, gas-fired power plant in the southern province of Mersin near Turkey’s largest port, which the company operates in a group with Singapore’s PSA International, a marine transport group of companies. The plant will cost 274 million euros, according to the company.

The bond sale announced at the meeting is the largest yet by a non-financial company in Turkey, said İlhami Koç, chief executive officer of İş Invest, which managed the sale.

Akfen plans IPO at real estate unit in 2010- Hurriyet Daily News

Recent Press Releases