Market Share of Television Advertising in Turkey: An Update on the sale of Merkez Yayin Holding

A Turkish Private Equity Web Log

In an effort to cover the Turkish Private Equity Industry - for the promotion of Entrepreneurship, the private equity asset-investment model, and the communication thereof.

11 September 2007

UPDATE: A fellow reader sent me an email and asked for a little more information concerning my last post on the seizure and public auction of Merkez Yayin Holding and its media assets:

hello there
i'm iann and i keep in romania a blog about media issues in south eastern europe what is the real sotry about Medya Yayın Holding? because i dont understand what is State Deposits and Insurance Fund and hi s implication in this transaction and also the trails about the property so if you have time to explain me a little bit the situation it would be breat

best regards
iann http://aluiann.wordpress.com [romanian]

Well Iann, first of all Wordpress is still blocked in Turkey (another story), and secondly, the TMSF is a government organization that repossesses the assets of companies and individuals and are either unable to pay their bills, have defaulted on loans and declared bankruptcy or have been prosecuted for illegal practices. The case with Merkez Yayin Media is that secret contracts were signed between the owner of a seized bank and the current owner of Merkez Yayin, basically sharing ownership. These documents were later uncovered and since the owner of Etibank owed somewhere in the region of $900 million, the media assets were seized. Here is an excerpt:

Bilgin Group's approximately $900 million debt to the TMSF is due largely to Etibank. In April, following the exposure of secret agreements between Etibank's leading partner Dinç Bilgin and the head of Merkez Group, Turgay Ciner, the TMSF took over the management and supervision rights of Bilgin and Merkez Group's 73 companies showing activity in the media sector. After the TMSF had confiscated Bilgin's Etibank in 2000, Ciner purchased ATV and Sabah in 2005 by signing a protocol with Bilgin and the TMSF.

So basically, that is what went wrong. Now, for the good part, here is a a breakdown of advertising market share represented by the 5 largest media groups in Turkey as published in Sabah last week:

Market Share of TV Advertising in Turkey
GROUP	2005	2006	2007/MAY
Doğan Group	38.6	40.0	45.0
Merkez Yayin Group	22.4	25.0	21.0
Çukurova Group	15.2	14.0	15.0
Doğuş Group	10.7	10.0	9.0
Other Groups	13.0	10.0	10.0

Once again, I will restate that Doğan Group has said they will not be bidding, but speculators, analysts and the common man on the street think that they may somehow take a stake in one of the consortium syndications that sit at the bidding table. Again, we will have to see how these shake out. Meanwhile, my friends in the trading business are now bullish, going long on Doğan Group and Hurriyet equities.

Merkez Yayin Holding consists of 5 newspapers (Sabah, Takvim and others), 40 magazines, 1 radio station, 2 national (ATV and Kanal 1) and 1 domestic television channel, 1 news agency, and a publishing business.

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