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Owner of Bereket, Ceyhan Saldanli (wearing glasses), having fun with then energy minister now finance minister Berat Albayrak (front).
Erdogan has so far resistedthe sale of NPLs to foreigners,which would mean a full-blown looting of hypothecated assets held by the businessmen affiliated with him. Erdogan may rather prefer debt restructurings to delay the inevitable doom is one line taken by sceptics on the markets in Istanbul.
Restructurings were first launched with the state’s Credit Guarantee Fund (KGF) following the failed coup attempt in July 2016, while Dogus Holding, owned by the formerly secular but presently Erdoganist Sahenk family, and Yildiz Holding, owned by the Islamist Ulker family who recently had problems with Erdogan due to the transferring of their wealth abroad, initiated the first round of high-volume debt restructurings at the beginning of 2018, prior to the lira meltdown that came in August.
Prior to the coronavirus crisis, in February, the duo relaunched a second round of high-volume debt restructurings on already restructured loans to benefit from synthetically pressured interest rates.
All of these groups or businessmen in question are billionaires, who mainly boosted their wealth during the Erdogan era, and their ongoing debt restructurings are typical examples of moral hazard.
Ferit Sahenk, head of Dogus, has depleted his stakes in Garanti Bank to Spain’s banking group BBVA for billions of dollars with perfect timing but he has not paid his debts to banks, including Garanti, as yet.
Turkey’s largest restructuring deal worth of $6.5bn was struck in 2018 by Yildiz Holding, which has spent billions of dollars on buying leading confectionery makers in the US and Europe.
Revisions ‘sought on agreed restructurings’.On September 15, some unnamed people told Reuters that large and small companies have been looking for further revisions to nearly all of the restructurings agreed in the past two years.
On September 21, Turkish electricity producer Enerjisa Uretim, a 50:50 JV between Turkey’s second largest industrial group Sabanci Holding and Germany’s E.ON, said that it had obtained a €650mn loan from Akbank, Garanti BBVA, HSBC Turkey, Isbank and French lender BNP Paribas’ local unit TEB. Akbank is controlled by Sabanci.
Turkey’s electricity utilities were carrying debt amounting to $47bn, of which $12-13bn required restructuring, Turkey’s banking association TBB said in
24 TURKEY Country Report November 2020 www.intellinews.com
