|
bne Turkey Daily ListExecutive Summary:
This is bne's Turkey daily newsletter, a list of the top stories in the country this morning. To manage your delivery options: click here: | ||
 |
|
|
|
| 1. Amgen to buy Turkey's MN Pharma |
| bne |
| April 26, 2012 The world's largest biotechnology company Amgen announced that it will buy over 95% of Mustafa Nevzat Pharmaceuticals of Turkey (MN Pharma) on Wednesday. The deal is worth $700m, reports the FT. MN Pharma is a privately-owned company specialising in generic injectable drugs with revenues of $200m in 2011. The company employs about 1,200 people. Experts estimate that in the future generic drugs will account for an ever larger piece of the pie of Turkey's $10bn pharmaceutical market. In the past five years, MN Pharma's revenues have increased by more than 10% annually, while the more general Turkish pharmaceutical market been mostly sluggish. According to MN Pharma, the company's exports are growing rapidly. Amgen sees this an opportunity to spread its presence in Turkey and the region. It is not a surprise that Amgen wants to invest more in Turkey. Turkey's pharmaceutical sector is growing rapidly. One in every five drugs sold in 2020 will be purchased in China, Russia, Brazil, India, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey, according to a report by international auditing and consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report highlights Turkey and and India's markets for the pharmaceutical sector. Turkey has around 300 pharmaceutical companies and 42 manufacturing facilities, 13 of which are run by multinationals. There has been an increasing interest by foreign companies to invest in Turkey's pharmaceutical sector and there has been quite a few recent acquisitions by foreign companies. In September 2011 Italian Recordati bought Turkish Dr F Frik Ilac, in May 2011, Poland's Polpharma acquired a majority of shares in Cenovapharma and in April 2011, European pharmaceutical company Nycomed entered into several agreements with various Turkish pharmaceutical firms to replace Biomeks Ilac as the marketing authorisation holder and distributor for the majority of the company's product portfolio in the country. Political reforms are making the Turkish market even more tempting for many foreign companies. The government has carried out large-scale health reforms, which have increased many people's access to medical services. Around 98% of the population is currently covered by social security. Turkey's healthcare spending has been about 6% of the GDP in recent years. And since the country's GDP has increased rapidly in the last year so has healthcare spending. Since Turkey has a huge social security deficit to deal with, the government is pushing to increase the use of generics as a cost saving measure. Currently, over half of all drugs sold in Turkey are generics. "Generics provide an opportunity for savings," he says. "Also generics are not wholly but mostly manufactured in Turkey and this local content is also something that the government cares about; they see the pharmaceutical sector as a strategic sector that needs to be developed in Turkey," says Can Buharali at the consultancy Istanbul Economics, to the FT. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 2. Turkey, Iraq rift deepens |
| bne |
| April 26, 2012 bne reported earlier this week on the rising tensions between Turkey and Iraq. It seems as there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The tensions reached new heights after the two countries as the countries began a top-level diplomatic row, reports Today's Zaman. Baghdad summoned Turkey's ambassador Yunus Demirer on Sunday to protest critical remarks made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and in a tit-for-tat move Turkey summoned Iraq's charge d'affaires Sudat Khidir on Tuesday to condemn the latest statements by Iraqi officials as unacceptable. The latest rift begun when Erdogan accused the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of stoking conflict between Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims and Kurds through "self-centered" means last week's Thursday. In responde al-Maliki called Turkey a hostile state with a sectarian agenda. "If we respond to Mr. Maliki, we give him the opportunity to show off," said Erdogan responded to al-Maliki's accusations on Saturday. Turkey, which is a majority Sunni Muslim, is worried that growing tensions in Iraq, together with the violence in Syria might lead to a wider sectarian conflict in the region. The conflict, if it goes on for much longer, might have a negative impact on the ever-increasing trade between the two countries. Last year Iraq become Turkey's second biggest trading partner after Germany. The trade volume hit $12bn 2011. "Mr. Maliki is not Assad, and Erdogan should be more polite: Turkey has substantial economic interests in Iraq," said Atilla Yesilada, partner at the Istanbul office of New York-based research firm Global Source Partners. "Many in Baghdad feel they shouldn't be taking lectures from Erdogan on marginalizing opponents when, from their perspective, he's done similar things in Turkey." |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 3. Will Turkey's Central Bank's actions match recent more hawkish statements? |
| Citi |
| April 26, 2012 Recent statements by senior CBT officials appear to have led markets to believe that the Bank has become more hawkish on inflation. In particular, the phrase "the CBT would prefer to change its monetary policy stance rather than revise its inflation forecast" was widely quoted in the press. In fact, Deputy Governor Kenc is reported to have said "..But the Central Bank isn't revising its current inflation forecast of 6.5% for 2012 and 5% for mid-2013. Instead, it continues to adjust monetary policy." (Reuters, April 24, 2012). Nonetheless, we believe that whether the CBT has become more hawkish on inflation remains an open question. Why is this so? Given the increased importance of the exchange rate in the conduct of monetary policy (see, for instance, "Deciphering the CBT's monetary policy", March 21, 2011 and "When does the 'CBT put' on the lira kick in?", April 10, 20121), the argument that the CBT has turned more hawkish on inflation suffers from theobservational equivalence problem. If anything, the evidence to date suggests that the CBT has been paying less attention to deviations from the inflation target since 2010. The governor's remarks, which appear to focus more on the lira than inflation, also support this conjecture. In our view, the CBT's reaction to a strong pick up in capital inflows would be a litmus test for revealing the CBT's genuine stance on inflation. Monetary policy easing in the event of a rise in capital flows when inflation and forward-looking expectations are above the target would cast further doubts on the CBT's inflation fighting credentials (See "Don't count on lira appreciation to tame inflation", February 22, 2012, for the asymmetric impact of appreciations and depreciations on inflation). In this respect, a quick glance at the evolution of the real policy suggests that there is very little wiggle room to relax monetary stance. Against this backdrop, the CBT's new Inflation Report to be released tomorrow will attract considerable attention. In particular, whether the CBT will carry out considerable revisions of its inflation forecasts (year-end projection in particular) and will provide clues about the future course of monetary policy will be closely monitored by the markets. In particular, given the CBT's recent signals suggesting that the Bank strictly prefers revising its policy stance to revising its inflation forecast, we believe that major revisions of inflation forecasts in the new Inflation Report would undermine market sentiment, thereby hurting the recent rally of the lira and the long-end of the yield curve. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 4. Turkish Garanti reported bank-only net profit of TRY 862mn in 1Q12 |
| Erste |
| April 26, 2012 Very much in line with our TRY 840mn estimate (but above the consensus forecast of TRY 827mn), Garanti reported bank-only net profit of TRY 862mn in its 1Q12 financials; a figure corresponding to 1% y/y and 9% q/q growth. The bank's quarterly RoE increased to 19% from 18% a quarter earlier. Overall the results are very much in line with our projections including the drop in the margins and provisions, while weaker than expected headline loan growth. Overall, we welcome the bank's focus on higher yielding loan segments, and expect to see a similar strategy in the remainder of the year. Growth continued in profitable areas. In the underlying quarter, Garanti's loan book contracted by 0.6% q/q. However, when looked in detail, the bank grew selectively in higher yielding loan segments such as mortgages (1.2% q/q vs. sector's 0.8%), GPLs (4.2% q/q vs. sector's 3.6%), while intentionally did not compete in local currency commercial loans. On the FX side, there is 4.3% q/q expansion mainly driven by commercial loans. With regards to funding, we observe 1.5% decline in the headline yet TRY deposits showed flattish quarterly performance. As a consequence, the bank's loans to deposits ratio increased to 100% as of March, 2012 (from 99% YE 2011). Spreads improved but lower gains on CPI linkers pulled the NIM down by 60bps. During 1Q12, Garanti continued to increase its local currency loan yields by 65bps to 11.4%. Meantime, TRY blended deposit costs raised to 9% from 7.8% a quarter earlier; resulting a spread of 2.4%. In the meantime, the bank's margins were impacted by the drop in the CPI linkers' yields (from 28.4% to 21.7%) in 1Q12, which has a 48bps negative impact on the NIM. The bank's overall NIM would have been stable when adjusted with the CPI linkers. Lower provisions supported the bottom line. After a one-off increase in 4Q11, Garanti's nominal bad loans deteriorated slightly by 3% in the quarter. However, the net quarterly NPL book declined by 40% q/q in 1Q12. Consequently, total provisions dived by 51% q/q over 4Q11, and resulted to a cost of risk of 0.50% (where provisioning coverage is maintained flattish). The management guides the CoR to remain below 1% by the end of the year, which is in line with our estimates. Costs and fees. Garanti delivered a strong quarterly performance in its total fees in 1Q12 with a 6% q/q rise mainly driven by seasonal factors. However, total fees are expected to decline in the coming quarters as a result of the accrual based accounting principle. On the OPEX side, there is 20% q/q drop but 17% jump when compared with the same quarter last year. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 5. EU adopts de minimis Regulation for services of general economic interest |
| Balkans.com |
| April 26, 2012 The European Commission has adopted a Regulation that exempts from EU state aid rules aid of up to € 500 000 per company over a three-year period that is granted as compensation for the provision of services of general economic interest (SGEI). Compensation of this magnitude is deemed unproblematic because it is too low to have any impact on trade and competition. This is the last pillar of a new package of state aid rules for SGEI, the bulk of which has been adopted in December 2011. Joaquin Almunia, Vice President of the Commission in charge of competition policy, said: "European citizens need both strong public services and an efficient internal market based on strong competition rules. This new exemption will facilitate the provision of many small, local public services and will also help the Commission focus its efforts on cases where state aid has a real impact on competition and trade between Member States". The SGEI de minimis Commission Regulation adopted today sets out the conditions under which support granted to SGEI providers does not constitute state aid within the meaning of Article 107 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Amounts of up to € 500 000 over three years are now deemed not to constitute aid because it does not affect competition or trade between Member States. This threshold is higher than the general de minimis thresholds in the field of state aid (€ 200 000 over three years) because it can be assumed that the support measures are at least in part compensating for the extra costs incurred for the provision of a public service. The new Regulation is a major simplification for both public authorities and service providers, because it will considerably reduce the administrative burden for granting public service compensation for small SGEI. At the same time, it increases legal certainty, because it establishes a clear threshold, below which SGEI compensation does not constitute state aid within the meaning of EU rules. Drafts of the new Regulation had been published for consultation in September 2011 (see MEX/11/0916) and in January 2012. The Commission received valuable contributions from Member States, European institutions and stakeholders which have been taken into account in the final version of the Regulation. In particular, conditions relating to the turnover of the provider and the size of the local authority granting the compensation have been removed. In the final version, only the condition related to the amount of aid (€ 500 000 over three years) has been maintained. The de minimis Regulation will be in force until 31 December 2018. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6. Tax: the average tax burden on earnings in OECD countries continues to rise |
| OECD |
| April 26, 2012 The average tax and social security burden on employment incomes increased in 26 out of 34 OECD countries in 2011 according to the new OECD Taxing Wages publication. Tax payers in Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and the Slovak Republic were among those hit with the largest increases. Those in New Zealand and the United States saw their tax burden fall. In Hungary, the average single worker without children was faced with the largest increase in the tax wedge, but for families with children, it fell. In most countries the higher overall tax burden was due to personal income tax, rather than increased Social Security Contributions. Only 5 countries raised their statutory tax rates on average earnings. In most cases the rise in the tax burden was due to a higher proportion of earnings being subject to tax because the value of tax free allowances and tax credits fell relative to earnings. In a few countries including the Czech Republic, Hungary and Ireland they were actually reduced in nominal terms. Taxing Wages provides nationally comparative details about the taxation of employment incomes and the associated costs to employers for different household types and at different earnings levels. These are the key factors in determining the incentives both for individuals to seek work and for businesses to hire workers. The tax burden is measured by the tax wedge as a percentage of total labour costs' or the total taxes paid by employees and employers, minus family benefits received, divided by the total labour costs of the employer. Taxing Wages also breaks down the tax burden between personal income taxes (PIT), including tax credits, and employee and employer Social Security Contributions (SSC) Key Taxing Wages results in 2011 included: The highest tax wedges for single workers without children who are earning the average wage in their country were observed in Belgium (55.5%), Germany (49.8%) and Hungary and France (49.4%). The lowest tax wedges on the same basis were in Chile (7%), Mexico (16.2%) and New Zealand (15.9%) The average for OECD countries was 35.3%. The average overall tax wedge, for those earning the average wage, increased by 0.3 percentage points between 2010 and 2011. This was largely due to PIT. Of the 26 countries where the tax wedge rose, in 18 the PIT wedge also rose, most notably in Ireland (+3.8 percentage points), Hungary (+2.4 percentage points) and Portugal (+1.4 percentage points). Falls in the overall tax burden were also primarily due to PIT changes - the largest decrease was in New Zealand where the tax wedge fell by 1.1 percentage points due to changes in the income tax rates in 2011. The United States was the main exception to the rule. The overall tax wedge fell by 0.9 percentage points in 2011, due to a decrease in employee social security contributions which outweighed an increase in income taxes resulting from the expiry of the temporary "Making Work Pay" non-wastable tax credit. The highest tax wedges for one-earner families with two children at the average wage were 42.3% for France, 40.3% for Belgium and 38.6% for Italy. New Zealand had the smallest tax wedge for these families (-1.2%), followed by Chile (7%), Ireland (7.1%) and Switzerland (8.4%). The average for OECD countries was 25.4%. Single people in Hungary faced the biggest increase in the tax burden, but families with children enjoyed the biggest reduction due to a reform of the child tax relief scheme that changed from a tax credit to a more advantageous tax allowance in 2011. In all OECD countries except Mexico and Chile, the tax wedge for families with children is lower than that for single individuals without children. The differences are particularly large in the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand and Slovenia. Taxing Wages 2011 includes a special feature that analyses trends over time in statutory PIT and employee SSC rates, the income thresholds where they apply, and other statutory provisions that shape average and marginal personal tax rates in OECD countries. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 7. Azerbaijan makeover based on oil, pomegranates and music |
| bne |
| April 26, 2012 Central Baku is in uproar due to the manic building works to give the city a facelift ahead of the 57th Eurovision song contest. "It's a nightmare," says one banker who works in central Baku, with good humour. "It should be a 20-minute drive from home to the office, but every day they close off another street for repairs and it is all happening so fast no one ever gets round to working out where the diverted traffic should go before it changes again." Yet few are losing their tempers over the traffic chaos, because they know it will end on May 26 when the final of the song contest will be held. Azerbaijan was the surprise winner in 2011 when Eldar and Nigar won with their performance of "Running Scared" only the third time the country had every participated. This year Sabina Babayeva will defend the title with her song "When the Music Dies", and go head-to-head with the likes of Russia's six Buranovskiye Babushki - one of the more bizarre entries in this already pretty surreal competition. "You can't buy marketing like this," says Adil Mammadov gleefully, president of the state promotion agency Azpromo, which is charged with raising Azerbaijan's profile on the international stage. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 8. Brussels gives green light to Hungarian aid talks |
| bne |
| April 26, 2012 Confirming intense market speculation following meetings a day previously, the European Commission gave the green light for Hungary to open talks on a loan programme with the International Monetary Fund and the EU on April 25. Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly told reporters in Brussels that it is "ready today to enter into the negotiations on financial aid that Hungary asked for." The next step is to examine the modalities of these discussions, he added, according to Bloomberg. Facing mounting storm clouds across Europe, Brussels had blinked first in its stand off with Budapest a day previously on April 24. Following a meeting between European Commission President Jose Barroso and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, dwindling hopes that Budapest is really pushing for a loan programme from the IMF and EU were revived. The Hungarian PM emerged from the meeting in bullish mood, suggesting that it may have finally opened the way for talks to start, after a five month delay during which relations between the pair have grown steadily more antagonistic. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 9. INTERVIEW: Avtovaz's last stand |
| bne |
| April 26, 2012 Avtovaz based in the Volga basin city of Togliatti, named in honour of the Italian communist who set up Russia's biggest car plant, is the archetypal Soviet dinosaur. The ubiquitous Lada is a knock-off of the Fiat 124 that was fashionable in 1980 and has been losing ground to the flood of foreign brands that are increasingly being assembled in Russia. Igor Komarov took over as president Avtovaz in 2009 and has made dramatic progress in dragging the plant-cum-city into the modern world. But observers worry he is fighting a losing battle, as the automaker will never be able to keeps its head above the rising tide of competition, even with a soon-to-be-concluded deal to sell a controlling stake to Renault-Nissan. The youthful and ebullient Komarov replaced Vladimir Kadannikov, the chain smoking and stolid boss who'd worked at the company since 1967, and set about modernising the company's mindset. Komarov called in the consultants and drew up a plan of action two years ago that he hopes will capitalise on the advantages that Avtovaz still enjoys. "Russia has a huge potential. The number of cars on the road is huge, while the number of sales is very low: if you take the ratio of these two numbers, then Russia is well behind the rest of Europe," Komarov told bne in an exclusive interview held at the Adam Smith annual Automotive Russia conference, the industry's premier event. With a per-capita ownership of some 200 cars per 1,000 people, Russia is half to a third of the European average and even further behind markets like the US. At the same time, the cars still on the road need replacing. "The car fleet is getting very old. More than half of the cars on the road are more than 10 years old and most don't meet any kind of ecological standard. As the clean air regulations get tougher, sales will increase," says Komarov in good English. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 10. Few opt for paid military waiver in Turkey |
| Hurriyet Daily News |
| April 26, 2012 The 13 billion liras of revenue expected from the recently-implemented paid military exemption law has not been achieved, with only 22,500 out of an estimated 460,000 possible candidates having applied in the first four months. In the first three months of the process, which was introduced on Dec. 15, 2011, the average monthly number of applicants was 5,860, while the figure dropped to 5,624 by the end of the fourth month, according to news portal Gazeteport.com. The total number of applicants was 22,500, or less than 5 percent of the target group, by the end of the fourth month. If this trend continues, the total figure will be between 35,000 to 40,000 by June 15, when the period expires. The maximum estimated revenue will total only 1.2 billion liras as things stand. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 11. New charter should endorse justice, says Turkey's President |
| Hurriyet Daily News |
| April 26, 2012 With only a week left before the Parliamentary panel begins to pen the new constitution, President Abdullah Gul warned that the charter should not be driven by "reactionary" motives only aiming to "empower the victims of previous periods." "Let us not forget that a constitutional rule that protects us from our own power when we are powerful today will protect us from the persecution of others when we are weaker tomorrow," Gul said at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the Constitutional Court. "A constitution solely seeking to amend the mistakes of a previous period cannot carry societies forward," he added. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 12. Tukey's first lady speaks of success in campaign |
| Hurriyet Daily News |
| April 26, 2012 Turkey's first lady Hayrunnisa Gul, wife of President Abdullah Gul has announced that the "Education Enables" campaign, aimed at educating disabled citizens, has reached its goals in ways she never expected. "Our aim was to increase the number of disabled persons who receive an education at a rate of 30 percent when we launched the campaign, but in the last three years the number of disabled citizens who have received an education increased at a rate of 144 percent," she said at the annual ceremony of the campaign on April 24 in Istanbul. "There were 150, 000 disabled citizens receiving an education, but now the number is 370,000 in total," Gul said. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 13. Turkey's civilian rule move gets EU praise |
| Hurriyet Daily News |
| April 26, 2012 The European Union wholeheartedly welcomes the Turkish government's efforts to end the age of military tutelage and consolidate civilian rule over the country, the union's top envoy to Turkey has said. "There's no doubt that we support this normalization [in civil-military relations]," Jean-Maurice Ripert told journalists yesterday. "The mainstreaming of the role of the army under civilian control is one of the bases of civilian democracy," he added, citing the EU's Progress Report released in 2011, which hailed the progress Turkey has made in harmonizing its civil-military ties with EU norms. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 14. Turkey slams Obama and French leaders on Armenian killings |
| Hurriyet Daily News |
| April 26, 2012 Turkey expressed "deep regret" over United States President Barrack Obama's April 24 statement on the Armenian massacres, saying that it was "extremely problematic and distorting historical facts." A foreign ministry statement said that Obama once again demonstrated a baseless approach reflecting the Armenian views regarding the dispute between Turks and Armenians on the painful part of their common history. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 15. The number of foreign tourists to Turkey witnessed a 9.72% drop in March |
| Balkans.com |
| April 26, 2012 The number of foreign tourists to Turkey witnessed a 9.72 percent drop in March compared to one year earlier, according to data released by the Tourism Ministry yesterday. Turkey saw 1.46 million tourists in March. In the first quarter of the year there was a 6.35 percent drop in the number of visiting tourists compared to the first quarter of 2011, Hurriyet Daily reports. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 16. Turkey sugar production will remain unchanged |
| Balkans.com |
| April 26, 2012 Production quotas for both beet sugar and starch based sugar remained unchanged at 2,288,000 MT and 244,000 MT respectively in marketing year 2011/2012 and will also be the same for marketing year 2012/2013. In response to lower quotas, the plantation area decreased to 2.9 million decars and sugar beet production decreased to 16 million MT in MY 2011/12. Total centrifugal sugar production remained at 2,262,000 MT as expected. Similar figures are expected for the next marketing year due to unchanged quotas. In line with the previous expectations, sugar production remained at 2,262,000 MT. The average sale price of sugar changed by 0.56 per cent compared to last year and became 1.79 TL/kg. Sugar beets account for two per cent of the total plantation area, 21 per cent of the total agricultural production and nine per cent of the total marketed value. As of 1 January, mixing of two per cent bio-ethanol obtained from local produce into gasoline will be mandatory. This will necessitate the production of 54 million liters of bioethanol and there is an established capacity of 144,000 cubic meters currently in Turkey. Privatisation efforts of the 25 factories belonging to Turkiye Seker Fabrikalari A.S. (Turkseker) continued in 2011 and 2012, and the target is to complete all of the privatisations by the end of 2014. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 17. Turkish minister demands interest in gas grids |
| Hurriyet Daily News |
| April 26, 2012 If private firms do not bid for gas distribution tenders in particular provinces the government will be forced to enter the gas distribution market, warned Turkey's Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. Speaking at the International Energy and Environment Fair and Conference (ICCI) in Istanbul yesterday, Yildiz said, the government did not want to disrupt the liberal market by entering the gas supply business, but may find themselves obligated to do so. Click to read more |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 18. Turkey's Government looks overseas for real-estate buyers |
| Balkans.com |
| April 26, 2012 With domestic buyers unable to afford Turkey's high-end housing stock, the government is looking to foreigners to soak up the supply. But more will have to be done to attract foreign buyers and invigorate the market, observers said. The Turkish government is close to amending legislation that would allow certain foreign buyers to purchase property in Turkey, something that previously was forbidden. Industry observers hope this will spark demand from foreign investors. "There is an intense interest from Middle East countries and former Soviet socialist republics in Turkey, particularly in Istanbul," said Haluk Sur, a board member at Emlak Konut, Turkey's largest real-estate investment trust by market value. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 19. Chinese Huawei is considering expanding its investments in Turkey |
| Balkans.com |
| April 26, 2012 Chinese network equipment supplier Huawei is considering expanding its investments in Turkey, according to Huawei Regional Director Sun Ming. The second largest wireless networking vendor in the world has a research and development (R&D) center in Istanbul and is the main equipment supplier of Turkey's three wireless operators. "Turkey hosts Huawei's second largest R&D center outside China and serves as a regional support center for 10 countries. We are content with our operations in Turkey and considering expansion both in scope and volume," said Ming. The company also collaborates with Turkish universities in providing training to academic staff and students. Some 350 researchers and engineers are employed at Huawei's R&D center in Umraniye, Istanbul, taking part in the company's global product development efforts. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 20. Turkish Akcansa to distribute cash dividend of TRY 0.4634 per share |
| Erste |
| April 26, 2012 Akcansa is to distribute a total cash dividend of TRY 88.7mn (TRY 0.4634 per share) today. The cash dividend amount implies a 5.57% dividend yield and a 86.5% payout ratio. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 21. Turkish Cimsa to distribute cash dividend of TRY 0.79 per share |
| Erste |
| April 26, 2012 Cimsa is to distribute a total cash dividend of TRY 106.7mn (TRY 0.79 per share) today. The cash dividend amount implies a 8.66% dividend yield and a 86.7% payout ratio. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 22. Turkish Bizim Toptan 1Q12 net profit at TRY 7m |
| Erste |
| April 26, 2012 Bizim Toptan announced its 1Q12 IFRS financial results. The company did not open any new stores in 1Q12 on top of the current 124 stores, due mainly to weather conditions, whereas it relocated a store from the B-type to the larger A-type format, in line with the new strategy to focus more on the HoReCa segment. 16% y/y improvement in main category items and mere 1% y/y growth in tobacco sales resulted in a consolidated top line of TRY 429mn, implying 12% y/y growth, lagging behind our estimate of TRY 442mn. Although the company's gross margin for each sub-category remained broadly flat, thanks to the lower contribution from low-margin tobacco sales, the consolidated gross margin increased 30bp. Despite the y/y improvement at the gross margin level, we calculate the company's EBITDA margin down 24bp y/y, due to the higher OPEX/Sales ratio. The TRY 4mn net non-operational loss below the EBIT line, which is mainly composed of credit finance charges, lowered the company's bottom line to TRY 7.0mn, broadly in line with our estimate of TRY 7.4mn. On the balance sheet side, due to a higher NWC requirement both y/y and q/q (mainly as a result of the higher level of inventories), the company generated negative free cash flow in 1Q12 compared to 1Q11 and 4Q11; accordingly, its net cash of TRY 20.1mn as of end-2011 declined to TRY 9.4mn as of end-March. |
| [Return to top of page] |
|
|