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bne November 2020 Companies & Markets I 9
saying, “What is your business with the dollar?”) abandoned its candidates in the last meaningful elections – the local polls held in spring last year – after it was unable to bribe them in cash terms.
It’s the same story with the Erdogan administration’s foreign investor “allies”. The “allies” in question are when it suits them ready to publicly support any manipulative campaigns staged by the government, but so far this year they have pulled out around $14bn from Turkey, while the government found itself selling cheap dollars to them while supporting bond
and stock prices.
Following on from the Black Sea natural gas discovery stage performance (sceptics eagerly await the day when they find out how much gettable gas there really is), the current story suggests that the government has broken through all negative expectations on Turkey with a surprise rate “hike”. If you buy.
During the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown period, one story in circulation was that there were “individual investors’ who were interested in the Borsa Istanbul”. It sounded fishy and indeed no-one could come up with a tangible explanation.
So, the best choice was to avoid the Borsa Istanbul as foreign investors, as could be seen in balance of payments-related data, were heavily selling.
By now, even the stakeholders in the Borsa Istanbul are referring to the supposed individual investor accounts as “fake”.
Of course, as the Bard had it, "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players" (has it ever been more true?), but if we want to try and find at least some sure footing what we can do is to check the scoreboards, though the scores come in lagged and we have to eliminate manipulated data.
Borsa Istanbul Indices (USD)
Has the Turkish government given up yet keeping the foreign investors' share at above 50% with a range of ruses? The 1,000-level for the Turkish lira-denominated BIST-100 is still holding.
According to the latest available data released on September 24 by the central bank, non-resident investors bought a net $3mn of Borsa Istanbul equities in the week ending September 18 versus a net $30mn outflow in the prevous week.
Though a tiny gain, it was marked down as the first time since mid-June that the Borsa Istanbul had seen a net inflow.
But there was a surprise in stock-basis data as in the week ending September 18, the foreign investors’ share in the free- float of Turkcell (TCELL) jumped after nosediving the previous week (chart below from Is Invest online analysis tool).
Shares in Turkcell sold by Sweden’s Telia Sonera were circulating to the remaining shareholders, the Turkish Wealth Fund (TVF) and Russia’s Alfa Telecom, based on a share sale agreement signed in June.
Foreigners also bought the Sisecam group companies (SISE, TRKCM, SODA, ANACM) that will merge under Sisecam (SISE) as of September 30. As of September 30, Soda (SODA), Anadolu Cam (ANACM), Trakya Cam (TRKCM) and Denizli Cam (DENCM) will be delisted, and Sisecam will continue
as a single company.
Foreign investors' shares in Sisecam, Soda and Trakya Cam from January 2019 to September 18 2020 (by Ak Invest).
From September 18 to September 25, the foreigners continued to sell Koc Holding. Koc Holding is thought to have been impacted by its oil refining giant Tupras (TUPRS), which is
in trouble due to the COVID-19 crisis.
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