Turkish government more involved in the activities of Turkcell

According to the press release from Turkey's largest mobile operator Turkcell, in this case, as in the past, the general meeting of its shareholders failed again. The cause of failure was failure of the holders of shares of the capital to agree on a single representative at the meeting. Odds are, in turn, the result of outstanding litigation between Altimo (telecommunications holding company Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman), Cukurova Group of the Turkish businessman Mehmet Karamehmet and Swedish-Finnish TeliaSonera.

As a consequence, the Commission on the Capital Markets of Turkey with the judgment of 15 August forcibly introduced to the Board of Directors two state representatives (currently 5 of 7), leading to loss of control of the Board by Altimo, Cukurova and TeliaSonera, still not settled mutual legal claim. The requirements of the updated legislation of Turkey are at least a third of seats on the Board of Directors of the companies held by independent directors, so that there is "over-fulfillment of the state plan."

In Altimo they declined to comment on the changes in the Board. This is normal, as the company for a long time defended in the courts the right to withdraw from Cukurova 13.8% stake in Turkcell on the account of the default in 2007 on the loan of $ 1.7 billion (it was issued in 2005 on the security of the disputed package).

Ongoing since 2007, the litigation has led to the fact that Turkcell, whose stock is traded on the NYSE and the Istanbul Stock Exchange, for a few years did not pay dividends. Since 2013, there was a threat of total loss by the shareholders of management control over the asset: Turkey is considering legislation that would allow the Commission on the Capital Markets fully to form the Board of Directors of Turkcell, if the shareholders fail to agree.

The winner of over a third of the shares, TeliaSonera has already expressed the wish to change the ownership structure of Turkcell, because the controlling shareholder is the structure through which any principal shareholder could block the adoption of important decisions.

At the moment, 51% of the shares are owned by the operator Turkcell Holding AS, which is 52.91% (controlling interest) owned by Cukurova Telecom Holdings Ltd. Given the share directly held, TeliaSonera has 37%, Cukurova has 26.98%, and Altimo has 13.2% in Turkcell.

Turkcell holds more than half of the Turkish mobile telecom market, and is a partner of mobile telecom operators of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Northern Cyprus, Ukraine and Belarus. Turkcell revenue in 2012 was $ 5.8 billion and the net profit was $ 1.2 billion. - 17D-