Tag: foreign investment

  • Saudi pays $190.7m for 469 Istanbul apartments

    Saudi pays $190.7m for 469 Istanbul apartments

    Manama: A Saudi businessman is paying $190.7 million (Dh700.27 million) for 469 apartments in Istanbul, a Turkish daily reported.

    The sale by Agaoglu Group, one of the highest flyers in the Turkish real estate industry, made up nearly 10 per cent of the project “Maslak 1453” in Turkey’s largest city, Hurriyet Daily News said, citing a report in the weekly Turkish magazine Ekonomist.

    The project features a total of 4,789 apartments.

    The Saudi businessman who was not named has already paid a deposit worth around $10 million and will pay the remainder this week the report said.

    Article continues below

    “This sale is like a privatisation. It is absolutely our highest figures for a sale,” said Hasan Rahvali, general manager at Agaoglu Group, stressing that the transaction was “unique” in the Turkish construction sector.

    The Saudi man decided to make this investment after a positive reference from two Saudi businessmen who bought 60 apartments each from Agaoglu’s “My Europe” project last year, Rahvali said.

    via Saudi pays $190.7m for 469 Istanbul apartments | GulfNews.com.

  • Intelligent Hospital Systems Expands into Europe with New Operations in Izmir, Turkey – WSJ.com

    Intelligent Hospital Systems Expands into Europe with New Operations in Izmir, Turkey – WSJ.com

    New unit will leverage IH Systems’ pharmacy practice expertise to work with regional healthcare providers on developing comprehensive dose solutions

    WINNIPEG, Manitoba–(BUSINESS WIRE)–April 18, 2013–

    Intelligent Hospital Systems (IH Systems), developer of the RIVA automated IV compounding system, announced that it is expanding its global footprint with new operations in Izmir, Turkey. IH Systems Turkey will focus on creating a platform for delivering end-to-end pharmacy solutions for hospitals that include drug inventory and supply, medication ordering, processing and workflow, pharmacy hardware and software technologies, and much more.

    The new office began providing services in Turkey last fall in a collaborative venture with Dokuz Eylül University Hospital in Izmir. The partnership is believed to be the first time a pharmacy technology provider such as IH Systems has teamed with a hospital to develop a comprehensive pharmacy solution.

    “The hospital pharmacy is central to patient care. There is not a department or patient that the pharmacy does not touch — so it is imperative that pharmacy operations are safe, efficient and cost-effective,” said Dr. Niels Erik Hansen, president and CEO of IH Systems. “We are using our expertise in pharmacy practice to expand our global service offering and help pharmacies increase safety and operational efficiency, and reduce costs.”

    Mr. Hilmi Sunay will serve as CEO of IH Systems’ Turkey unit. A recognized expert in pharmacy technology, automation and cytotoxic preparation, Mr. Sunay served as CEO of healthcare technology company Rivosem in Istanbul for five years before joining IH Systems last April. He has consulted with such well-known healthcare companies as Johnson & Johnson, Beckton Dickinson and Boehringer Ingelheim Delta Pharma, and led the development of more than 50 pharmacy compounding centers in Turkey.

    “We are very excited to have a respected expert such as Hilmi leading the expansion of IH Systems in Europe and being a catalyst for continued growth,” said Dr. Hansen. “Not only does he have decades of experience in the market, more importantly, he has tremendous knowledge of all aspects of pharmacy practice and healthcare technology.”

    As part of its aggressive effort to expand into new markets, IH Systems earlier this year announced it has entered into a manufacturing partnership with Cambridge, Ontario-based ATS Automation. ATS will become the global manufacturer of the RIVA system. The hi-tech manufacturer has 20 production facilities around the world, including several in Western Europe, as well as India, China, Malaysia and Singapore.

    About Intelligent Hospital Systems

    Founded in 2006, Intelligent Hospital Systems (IH Systems) is a medical device company focused on the design and development of automated solutions for the hospital environment. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, IH Systems manufactures RIVA, a fully automated IV compounding system that prepares medications for syringes and IV bags in an aseptic environment. Using RIVA, hospitals enhance patient safety, lower the cost-per-dose of medications, reduce their vulnerability to medication shortages and cut waste. For more information, visit .

    CONTACT: For Intelligent Hospital Systems

    Cookerly Public Relations

    Cory Stewart, 404-816-2037

    cory@cookerly.com

    SOURCE: Intelligent Hospital Systems

    via Intelligent Hospital Systems Expands into Europe with New Operations in Izmir, Turkey – WSJ.com.

  • Investors Look Past Turkey’s Achilles’ Heel

    Investors Look Past Turkey’s Achilles’ Heel

    By Emre Peker

    ISTANBUL–Turkey’s economic Achilles’ heel, a chronic and once-again widening current-account deficit, is getting more visible with each passing month. But international investors are sanguine, seeking to deploy cash from the global monetary easing and betting Turkey will score a second investment-grade rating amid peace talks to end a three-decade Kurdish insurgency.

    The central bank said Thursday that Turkey’s short-term foreign-funding needs rose by 21% on an annual basis to $5.13 billion in February. With that, the current-account gap for the 12-month period widened for a second straight month to $48.4 billion, or 6.2% of gross domestic product.

    Despite warnings from economists that Turkey can’t sustain external funding requirements exceeding 5% of its $786 billion economy, markets shrugged off the latest data showing a further deterioration in the current-account gap. The Borsa Istanbul 100 index rose more than 1% to 83362, while the lira gained 0.14% to 1.7863 per dollar. The yield on Turkey’s benchmark two-year bond dropped to 5.75% from 5.82%.

    Investor appetite for Turkey is fueled partially by speculation that Moody’s Investors Service Inc. will upgrade the country’s credit rating by one notch to investment grade this year. Fitch Ratings awarded Turkey investment-grade status in November, enabling more international fund managers to buy Turkish assets.

    Moody’s boosted expectations on Thursday with a note that touched on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to secure a lasting peace with Turkey’s Kurds, who make up about 20% of the country’s 75 million population. A three-decade uprising in the country’s southeast by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party–known as PKK and listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union–claimed more than 40,000 lives and cost the economy as much as $450 billion, according to official estimates.

    “The prospect of peace promises to boost investor confidence and improve southeastern Turkey’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign direct investment, which would deliver economic benefits and reduce Turkey’s external vulnerabilities, enhancing sovereign creditworthiness,” Moody’s analysts Sarah Carlson and Daniel Marty in London said in a report Thursday.

    Moody’s comments echoed a similar note by Standard & Poor’s Corp. in late March. S&P analysts increased Turkey’s credit rating by one step to BB-plus, citing the country’s economic rebalancing and the peace talks since October that culminated in a cease-fire last month.

    Yet the upbeat reports contrast with the rating firms’ earlier stance, when they listed foreign-funding needs as a major obstacle in Ankara’s aspirations for investment-grade status. When the current-account gap hit a record $78.4 billion, or 10% of GDP, in October 2011, investors sold off Turkish assets, causing the lira to 20% drop against the dollar and triggering double-digit inflation.

    Now, steps such as the Bank of Japan’s decision to pump more money into the economy and record-low yields across the world are pushing investors to Turkey, despite economist forecasts of a widening gap on the back of rapid consumer-lending growth.

    In February, Turkey financed 61% of its current-account deficit with so-called hot money as portfolio inflows more than doubled to $3.1 billion compared with the previous month.

    Meanwhile Turkey’s inflation climbed to 7.3% in March from 7% in February, and data released last week showed that the economy expanded by only 2.2% last year, missing analyst and government estimates ranging from 2.5% to 3%.

    “Not a great combo of data: higher and wider current account deficit, higher inflation and weaker growth,” said Tim Ash, head of emerging-market research at Standard Bank Plc in London. “But markets don’t seem to care much at the moment with emerging markets still awash with liquidity, and Turkey underpinned by hopes on the PKK peace front … and more positive commentary of late from Moody’s.”

    via Investors Look Past Turkey’s Achilles’ Heel – Emerging Europe Real Time – WSJ.

  • Lo-Q makes move into Turkey

    Lo-Q makes move into Turkey

    Lo-Q (LON:LOQ), the queuing solutions group, has staked its claim in Turkey through a new deal with the country’s first international mega theme park, exhibition centre and shopping centre.

    “Adding Vialand to our park portfolio adds to our already strong presence in the European theme park arena," said CEO Tom Burnet
    “Adding Vialand to our park portfolio adds to our already strong presence in the European theme park arena,” said CEO Tom Burnet

    Its Q-bot and Q-smart technologies will be launched at the new Vialand park, which spans 600,000 square metres of land at the heart of Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city.

    The systems will be installed at the theme park for two years with the option to extend the agreement for a further two.

    Chief executive Tom Burnet said: “I am delighted Gürsoy & Via Development and Management Co sought to install both our Q-bot and Q-smart solutions at Turkey’s first mega theme park.

    “This is a particularly exciting deal for Lo-Q not only because it is our first installation in Turkey, but also because Vialand marks the second customer win for our newest technology solution, Q-smart.

    “Adding Vialand to our park portfolio adds to our already strong presence in the European theme park arena.”

    Q-bot, the company’s flagship product, will be used at eight of the park’s largest rides in time for Vialand’s grand opening later this year. Q-smart meanwhile, Lo-Q’s smartphone solution that allows park visitors to book their rides in advance to avoid queuing, will be launched later in the season.

    Vialand is expected to welcome two million guests through its doors every year. It is thought the park will boost the number of local and foreign tourists visiting Istanbul by as much as 15%.

    via Lo-Q makes move into Turkey – Proactiveinvestors (UK).

  • New Iranian firms in Turkey stir front company worries for Ankara

    New Iranian firms in Turkey stir front company worries for Ankara

    An unexpected number of Iranian-financed firms set up shop in Turkey in January, a development likely to cause discomfort in Ankara as Iran looks to develop a network of middlemen in Turkey and elsewhere to sidestep crushing international sanctions meant to halt its nuclear program Today`s Zaman reported.

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    There were 28 Iranian-funded foreign companies established in Turkey in January, which ranked just behind German investors, according to a report released by the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) on Friday.

    The development continues a trend of an unprecedented number of Iranian-funded firms opening their doors in Turkey since international sanctions against Iran began in earnest two years ago. A previous TOBB report published in September 2012 stated that 651 Iranian-funded foreign companies were established in Turkey in the first nine months of 2012 and a total of 2,140 companies funded by Iran in 2011, other TOBB data show. This was a 40 percent rise over 2010.

    In turn, the trend has caused Ankara worry that potentially illegal activities by those Iranian companies will risk an unwanted confrontation between Ankara and its Western allies over US and EU-imposed sanctions, as well as several UN Security Council resolutions. Many of those firms, which are predominately listed as power generation, electronics and communications companies, are suspected by the US and EU of helping the country procure supplies under embargo.

    It isn’t the only way that Iran has made Turkey its ally against sanctions, though the US this month moved to block another Turkish lifeline to Iran, the “gold for gas” trade which saw Turkey export gold to Iran in exchange for Iranian natural gas and petrol. The trade saw Turkey export around $6.5 billion in gold to Iran in 2012, a more than tenfold increase over the year before.

    But while Turkey has traditionally been defiant about its right to continue that trade, arguing that Iran supplies 30 percent of its daily natural gas supply and it is too large a quantity to fully replace with imports from elsewhere, Ankara is likely to bow to pressure on a new US measure to block sales of precious metals to Iran. The new measure targets Halkbank, which has been used as an intermediary to convert the lira Tehran receives in gas sales into gold accounts. According to Reuters, Iranian couriers are then believed to withdraw gold from those accounts and ship the gold to Iran.

    But while highly visible intermediaries like Halkbank can be targeted, the smaller front firms looking to sneak goods and merchandise under the embargo may be much harder to stop. Previous reports by Today’s Zaman have shown that those companies use a number of poorly regulated intermediaries like Iraq and Pakistan to re-route merchandise from Turkey, or use the porous Esendere border crossing in Yüksekova in the southeastern Turkish province of Hakkari.

    The TOBB statistics provided by new Iranian firms entering Turkey also suggest that illegal actions may be afoot. A TOBB report in January last year saw 63 Iranian companies register in the month, versus just 36 German companies. Given that Germany’s trade with Turkey is over twice as high for that year, it suggests that many of those companies may indeed be fronts.

    Last January’s numbers also suggest that the overall number of Iranian firms registering in Turkey declined over the year, a trend Former Justice and Development Party (AKP) Mardin deputy Cüneyt Yüksel told Today’s Zaman was likely the result of declining confidence and capital among non-front Iranian firms, expecially in the tourism sector.

    Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Antalya Deputy Mehmet Gunal meanwhile told Today’s Zaman that Turkey and Iran have different views on the Syrian issue, a difference which could also be a contributor to the decline in the number of Iranian businesses.

    Even if Turkey does crack down on suspicious Iranian firms, there are still likely ways Tehran will be able to ship parts critical for its nuclear program through its borders. This weekend a report by nuclear watchdog, the Institute for Science and International Security, reported that Tehran has used China as a conduit for specialized magnets needed to develop nuclear weapons.

    In July of last year Washington took its most notable step to stop front companies from supplying Iran, releasing a list of ships and banks that it said were helping Tehran acquire a nuclear weapon. The US and the EU have worked to freeze financial transactions and to fine companies knowingly doing business with fronts for Iran.

    via New Iranian firms in Turkey stir front company worries for Ankara – Trend.Az.

  • Emaar secures $500m funding for Istanbul project

    Emaar secures $500m funding for Istanbul project

    Emaar Square TurkeyEmaar Properties has announced that it has agreed a $500m deal with a consortium of banks to fund development of its Emaar Square project in Istanbul.

    The mixed-use development – Emaar’s second project in Turkey- will contain the biggest shopping mall in Turkey, a 180-room, five-star hotel, offices, leisure space amd more than 1,000 luxury homes.

    The consortium of banks that have agreed to provide the $500m (AED: 1.84bn) in funding include Standard Chartered Bank, Emirates NBD and HSBC. The funding will be repaid in seven years.

    Emaar Properties’ chairman Mohamed Alabbar said: “Having recorded strong financial performance this year, Emaar is focused on the on-schedule completion of our master-planned projects in key emerging markets and in Dubai.

    via Emaar secures $500m funding for Istanbul project | ConstructionWeekOnline.com.