Although it’s only a young private equity market, Turkey is attracting some serious interest, with local and international firms jostling to get in on the act. Vicky Meek reports

Back in the heydays of 2006 to 2008, Turkey was receiving a lot of attention from the large, international private equity houses who were sniffing about for new deals. Some managed to complete: KKR acquired shipping business UN Ro-Ro in 2007 for nearly €800m, Providence Equity Partners bought pay-TV company DigiTurk in 2006 and BC Partners scooped one of Turkey’s largest M&A deals with the acquisition of a 50.8% stake in supermarket chain Migros in 2008.

Unsurprisingly, since the deepening of the financial crisis at the end of last year, the market has been quiet. Where once, many international firms had been talking about establishing an Istanbul presence, these plans were quickly shelved once the scale of the credit crisis became apparent. There had been rumours of new offices from KKR, 3i and Swicorp, among others. But these have so far come to nothing and some that already had a presence are believed by some to be considering shutting down their offices. “If we hadn’t had the crisis, a number of the international firms would have opened up here by mid-2009,”says Ibrahim Arinc of corporate finance house 3 Seas Capital Partners. In the meantime, some of the investment banks in Istanbul have now shut up shop.

This has left the market to a small group of local investors – two institutional and the rest akin to family offices – plus regional players from Central and Eastern Europe and the Gulf, who say little has been completed this year...

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