Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to buy 26.5 percent of Aksa Enerji Uretim AS, one of Turkey’s two biggest power producers, for about $450 million, driving a record gain in the utility’s shares.
Goldman Sachs will pay 5.05 liras ($2.94) a share to Aksa’s parent company, Kazanci Holding AS, which will invest the proceeds in power generation, Aksa Chairman Cemil Kazanci said today by telephone. “The price isn’t certain and could change at the closing of the transaction,” he said.
Turkey’s energy industry is luring international companies as electricity demand is set to grow by an average 6.3 percent over the next 20 years, Hasan Koktas, head of the energy-market regulator, said June 15. Italy’s Ansaldo STS SpA won a 640 million-euro ($919 million) order for an 865-megawatt plant this month. Austria’s Verbund AG and OMV AG, Germany’s RWE AG and U.S.-based AES Corp. have also bought power assets in Turkey.
Goldman Sachs loaned Kazanci Holding $192 million as part of the transaction, Kazanci said. The holding company pledged 43 percent of Aksa shares as collateral for the loan, which has a maturity of a year and one week, he said.
Goldman Sachs’s offer represents a 22 percent premium to Aksa’s volume-weighted average share price over the 20 days through July 22, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Aksa rose 33 kurus, or 8.7 percent, to 4.14 liras at the 5:30 p.m. close in Istanbul, the biggest one-day gain since the stock started trading in May 2010.
Debt Payments
Aksa expects the deal to close in September. Kazanci Holding will use a “large part” of the proceeds to pay its debts to Aksa, Zeynep Karaman, an analyst at BGC Partners Istanbul, said by telephone.
In April, Kazanci Holding applied to the Istanbul Stock Exchange to sell 68.9 million shares in Aksa, or an 11.9 percent stake, on the bourse. The stock slumped 13 percent in the following three months.
“I don’t think Kazanci has given up on its plan for a secondary share sale at Aksa, but this plan has put pressure on the stock price,” according to Karaman, who recommends buying Aksa shares. “Now that overhang seems to be going away.”
Aksa, based in Istanbul, has power-generation capacity in excess of 1,500 megawatts, Kazanci said, adding that it will “soon” rise to 2,000 megawatts. Competitor Enerjisa, a venture owned by Verbund and Turkey’s Haci Omer Sabanci Holding AS, has a capacity of 1,557 megawatts, according to its website.
Bloomberg
Leave a Reply