Turkey to revitalise privatisation program

Justice Minister and government spokesman Cemil Cicek said on Monday that the government planned to open tenders for the privatisation of the state owned Tobacco, Tobacco Products, Salt and Alcohol Enterprises (Tekel) and land line operator Turkish Telekom and for the Tekel in October.
Speaking at a press conference following a meeting of the cabinet, Cicek said that the government was also pushing ahead with the proposed public offering of state-run Turkish Airlines in November.
“Work on the process of a public offering of THY shares to be launched on November 17 are continuing at speed,” he said.
“The tender for the 51 percent block sale of Turkish Telekom will be opened in the first week of October, while the tender for Tekel’s tobacco operations would be launched in the third week of next month.”
If held, the tender for Tekel will be the second attempt to sell off the tobacco arm of the enterprise.
Turkey scraped the original sale of Tekel’s tobacco operations last November after bids in the tender fell well short of market expectations. The highest bid in the previous tender came from Japan International (JTI) with an offer of $1.15 billion.