Limak, a Turkish construction and energy group, is preparing to apply to the Capital Markets Board in March to sell shares at Limak Investment through an initial public offering, according to the group’s chairman.
The holding plans to offer nearly 35 percent of the shares of Limak Investment, a branch active in energy production and construction businesses.
The branch has 17 firms operating in energy generation and distribution in Turkey and Georgia, construction projects in many countries including the main international airport in Pristine and highway contracts in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Macedonia, said Chairman Nihat Özdemir at a meeting in Istanbul on Thursday.
Based in Ankara, Limak hired Unicredit and İş Investment to manage the public offering process.
The company also holds 40 percent of shares at Istansbul’s Sabiha Gökçen International Airport along with nine hydroelectric plants in Turkey and four more in Georgia, which generate some 1,000 megawatts of electricity in total.
One geothermal plant in southwestern province of Denizli is also included in Limak Investment’s current portfolio.
The group holds licenses for operating the power grids in the central province of Yozgat and the northwestern province of Bursa and posted 2.2 billion Turkish Liras in revenue at the end of last year.
Limak plans to increase its energy investments, especially after the country’s general elections due June 12, Özdemir told journalists at the meeting. “We will invest more in the electricity distribution businesses to be privatized,” he said, forecasting that the government tends to boost privatizations after elections.
Nearly 80 percent of the shares will be allocated to international corporate investors, according Özdemir.
Limak also won a bid for the 36-year operational rights to the large international port in İskenderun, a Mediterranean district in the southern province of Hatay, last year, investing $372 million. “İskenderun [port] carries great importance for the group and we will make it bigger than the Mersin airport,” he said.
Limak is among the prominent cement companies in Turkey. “We have a cement firm investment for $100 million in southeast province of Şanlıurfa and increased its capacity by 120 percent as we target Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and Syria”.
The group currently has five cement plants in Siirt, Bitlis, Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep and Diyarbakır, all southern provinces.
Commenting on the company’s future plans, the chairman said Limak is interested in opportunities in nearby emerging markets such as the Balkans, Caspian region and the Middle East.
North African retreat
Recent unrest in North African countries has affected the group’s plans for some investments, according to a board member.
“We were just about to participate in a tender for four highway contracts valued around $150 million in Libya and Cairo and airport construction and operation – valued at approximately $300 million – in Egypt, but we have postponed these plans for today,” Serdar Bacaksız, a board chairman at Limak Investment told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
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