Turkcell seeks Iranian deals

TURKCELL was looking for acquisition opportunities to expand regionally and Iran could be a target market as sanctions against Tehran were lifted, the chief executive of Turkey’s largest cellular operator said yesterday.

“Iran is a huge market and in our focus,” Kaan Terzioglu said. “We are closely watching the Iranian market and in touch with all of its fixed-line and mobile operators.”

Turkcell has had a longstanding interest in Iran. In 2004 it led a consortium that won a cellular licence in Iran that was later given to a rival group headed by MTN Group.

It later tried to sue MTN in a US court but eventually dropped that suit.

Although looking to grow its regional reach, it had not ruled out selling its almost 42 percent stake in cellular firm Fintur, Terzioglu said.

Fintur has operations in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova and is majority owned by Sweden’s TeliaSonera, which is looking to sell its own stake in the Eurasian firm.

Turkcell said in November that it would make a nonbinding indicative offer for the TeliaSonera stake. However, it could instead consider selling out if the right offer came along, Terzioglu said, adding that the firm would proceed with plans to pay a dividend again this year.

Turkcell has a policy of giving away 50 percent of its annual distributable profit as dividend, although that has been hampered by a dispute between major shareholders TeliaSonera, Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman and Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, one of Turkey’s richest men.

Turkcell’s net profit fell 16.5 percent to 631 million lira (R3.5 billion) in the third quarter of last year mostly due to rising financial costs and devaluations in Ukraine and Belarus.

The company has about 34 million customers in Turkey and a second-biggest market share with 36 percent in the whole telecom industry. – Reuters