Sabanci will invest another TRY 5B this year

After a busy year of investments in 2017, totalling TRY 5 billion, Sabanci Holding announced that it will match that amount again in 2018. Speaking at a press conference last week, Chairwoman Guler Sabanci and CEO Mehmet Gocmen looked back on a year which saw the conglomerate’s net sales increase by 22 percent to TRY 65.6 billion while its consolidated net profit rose to TRY 3.5 billion, a 31 percent increase. EBITDA, meanwhile, increased by 34 percent to TRY 15 billion. Looking ahead, the group says it will base its 2018 predictions on a GDP growth rate of slightly more than 5 which shoud help it reach its net sales revenues target increase of 15 to 20 percent.

Despite the hit stock exchanges have taken since the beginning of the year, Guler Sabanci believes global growth will continue to be strong. “The world economy has entered a period of outstanding growth,” she said, noting that opposing trends – declining stock markets, growth performance in real economies and the developments in the financial markets - can co-exist.

In terms of the digital revolution, Sabanci said that the greatest impact of digitalization is felt in industry and production. “Sectors intertwine, borders either disappear or are redefined. In such a world, we have entered a new stage at Sabanci. We call this next stage ‘Sabanci for the new generation,’ where technology and digitalization lie at the heart of our business. I hope we will adopt a road map compatible with the digital world going forward.”

CEO Mehmet Gocmen added that there is a plan to change the dividend policy of Sabanci Holding. “As Enerjisa Enerji has become a dividend paying company, the dividend potential of our group of companies has increased,” he said. “We also examined our policy with our ‘value creation’ mission. Accordingly, the dividend to be distributed in 2018 will be 50 percent more than 2017.”

On the investment front, Gocmen said that Sabanci will invest the TRY 1.5 billion gathered from EnerjiSA’s public offering to upgrade EnerjiSA Uretim. “Our aim is to prepare EnergySA Uretim for an initial public offering by the end of 2019,” he said. “A production company has to have a good equity and dividend story before it is offered to the public.” Gocmen also pointed out that Sabanci’s target is to go public with all of its companies and that about 20 percent of the companies in their portfolio are not currently offered.

In other investments, Gocmen added that Sabanci continues to search for an acquisition in cement, among other acquisitions. “We are looking at about 50 different investments both at home and abroad,” he said.