As you may have heard, Turkish airport operator TAV Airports Holding is set to float on the Istanbul Stock Exchange aiming to raise up to $340m (262m Euro). If successful it would become the country’s fifth-largest offering. The float will raise $300m at the mid-point with the green shoe offering, and at the top of the range could overtake the $317m initial public offering of Coca Cola Icecek Uretim in May last year.

Goldman Sachs holds a 15% stake in the firm that they acquired only a month and a half ago at the end of December for $225m. TAV will float 16% of its capital and at the mid-point could be valued at $1.6bn.

Last week, Goldman Sachs announced they would sell up to 44.6 million shares at a price range of 8.55 liras to 10.30 liras a share. They have the potential to make $30m (€23m) from the float. TAV will float 69% on London aimed at institutional investors and 31% on Istanbul aimed at Turkish retail investors.

A source close to the deal said: "This deal has attracted other banks to take another look at Turkey. We could see lots more going on there this year. Conditional trading is going well and has attracted lots of interest from international investors."

What’s happening? A new 250 million Euro PE Fund from the previous post and the announcment of an IPO in the same week? Has Turkey reached another milestone? Well, someone is grandstanding somewhere.

And I ask you, is the following statistic from this blog 4 days earlier a coincidence? Someone at Goldman Sachs in California was searching for "private equity activity greece and turkey". Coincidence or not, it should be an interesting year.

On February 7th, I happened to notice a page view in my statistics from the office network of Financial News Online, a UK financial newspaper. They just so happened to be searching google for "Private Equity Turkey 2006". So I decided to bite, and to my amazement, it seems the Private Equity industry (in addition to the foreign investment in the Turkish banking industry) is taking off.

Actera Partners, formed by Isak Antika, managing director of Antika Partners, and Murat Cavusoglu, formerly a managing director at Bedminster Capital Management, which runs a South Eastern Europe fund (formerly Soros Investment Capital Ltd), have formed a targeted €250m ($325m) joint venture between the €65bn Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and the €67bn Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (press release).

That's right. Two very large Canadian pension funds have come together to form one of the largest PE funds focusing exclusively on Turkey. The fund will be focusing on buyout and growth equity investments across all sectors in Turkey, and will also partner with Turkish groups to help them expand internationally.

The deal is cited to be the result of increased harmonization between Turkey and Europe. Jim Leech, senior vice-president of Teachers' Private Capital, was quoted as saying, "Turkey is an attractive private equity market, with a large and growing population, a high number of quality mid-market businesses, and a developing economy which is expected to benefit from becoming increasingly harmonised with Europe."

Maybe the hopes and dreams cited in Evren Unver's powerpoint slide from Athens VC Conference in 2004 have finally come true for Turkey.

As well, perhaps that is why I saw so many google searches for Antika Partners last month – due diligence taking its course. But regardless, would anyone else care to have a beer over the continued traction of Private Equity in Turkey? Most likely Murat and Isak are. I ask you, are we finally seeing the fruits of an emerging market and perhaps more entries to come? Stay tuned.

Labels: Actera, deal flow, Emerging Markets, fundraising, Venture Capital