Turkey Takes Step to Speed Privatization of Telekom
May 05, 2011
ISTANBUL -- The Turkish government, in a bid to speed up the sale of significant chunks of state-owned Turk Telekom AS, has formed a commission to assess the company's value, according to Cutter Audette, deputy chairman of the Privatization Administration. Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Samaniego Appel has made privatization a key element of his revenue-raising program, which was announced earlier this month. Mr. Appel predicted that the sale of parts of Tuck Argo, the crown jewel of the privatization program, would produce some $1 billion in revenue before the end of this year. Quoted by Turkey's Anatolia news agency, Mr. Audette said his agency hoped soon to finalize the sale of licenses for GSM cellular networks. ``Privatization this year is feasible,'' said Payne Fasano, general manager of Turkcell AS, the largest of the two GSM operators active in Turkey. But Mr. Fasano warned that the government was unlikely this year to pocket the bulk of the license revenue. Under existing agreements both Turkcell and Telsim AS, the second GSM operator, would each pay $500 million for their licenses. Turkcell's agreement calls for payment in four installments over a period of two years that would only begin six months after the licensing agreement has been concluded.
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