Turkey’s largest telco Turk Telekom (TTKOM) has applied to the Capital Markets Board (SPK) to issue up to Turkish lira (TRY) 1bn ($176mn) worth of local currency-denominated domestic debt securities, the company said on October 2 in a stock exchange filing.

The paper will be sold in single or multiple tranches with different maturities of up to five years to qualified investors, with no public offerings.

Turk Telekom had a net debt of TRY 17.4bn as of end 1H19, while its short-term financial debt comprised of around 29% of its gross financial debt, Seker Invest said in its daily bulletin.

In July, Fitch Ratings downgraded Turk Telekom to BB-/Negative from BB+, following the sovereign downgrade.

In February, Standard & Poor’s affirmed Turk Telekom at BB-/Stable.

Turk Telekom is the leading integrated telco in Turkey. It operates the country's largest fixed network and the smallest of its three mobile networks.

In February this year, Turk Telekom sold $500mn worth of 6-year eurobonds due 2025 at a coupon rate of 6.875% and a re-offer price of 99.396%.

In 2014, the company issued $1bn worth of senior unsecured eurobonds in two equal $500mn tranches with maturities of 5 and 10 years. It redeemed the 5-year papers in June this year.

In February this year, Turk Telekom allocated $20mn to repurchase the 10-year paper due 2024 (XS1028951264), currently trading on the Irish Stock Exchange.

The company on February 4 bought bonds nominally-valued at $5mn at an average price of $93.125 for a total consideration of $4.69mn. On February 6, it said it had bought another $5mn of nominally-valued bonds at an average price of $93.25 for a total consideration of $4.66mn. On February 7, it bought an additional $2.5mn of nominally-valued bonds at an average price of $93.625 for a total consideration of $2.34mn.

On February 11, it said it acquired another $2mn of nominally-valued bonds at an average price of $92.4 for a total consideration of $1.85mn. On February 13, it said it purchased another $5.5mn of nominally-valued bonds at an average price of $92.045 for a total consideration of $5.06mn.

Turk Telekom operates with a paid-in capital of TRY3.5bn while its market value stood at TRY19.8bn as of October 3 with the share price up 50% y/y to TRY5.58.

Turk Telekom shares saw the TRY3.17s at the end of October last year and they tested above the TRY6 at the end of last month.

The Borsa Istanbul’s benchmark BIST-100 was up 5% y/y to 102,951 as of 17:00 local time on October 3.

The index jumped by 3.15% d/d to 105,152 on September 27 and it has been falling since then.

The foreign share of Turk Telekom’s 14.98% free-float gradually fell to 67.21% on October 2 from 68.85% on September 25 but still compared as significantly high against the 46.59% seen at end-2018, according to Is Yatirim’s daily foreign share bulletin.

Turk Telekom posted TRY435mn of net profit in Q2 versus a net loss of TRY870mn in Q2 2018 while revenues rose by 16% y/y to TRY5.8bn.

The market expected a net profit of TRY454mn for the second quarter.

The company increased its Ebitda target for 2019 to TRY10.3-10.5bn from a previous TRY10-10.2bn after its Ebitda rose by 36% y/y to TRY2.3bn in Q2.

The Ebitda margin also rose, moving up to 49% in the quarter from 40% a year ago but comparing two percentage points lower than in the first quarter of 2019.

Turk Telekom’s FX debt hedge ratio declined to 76% in Q2 from 84% in Q1 but it was higher than 44% in Q2 2018.

The number of total subscribers rose by 320,000 in the quarter to a total of 47mn.

Turk Telekom had 11.1mn broadband subscribers as of end-June while its total number of mobile customers stood at 22.4mn. The number of fixed-line users was 9.9mn.

TT Mobil, Turk Telekom’s mobile unit, managed to increase its number of subscribers to 21.52mn at the end of 2018 from 19.59mn a year ago.

Turk Telekom’s Net Debt/Ebitda ratio, which reached 2.3 in Q3 2018, declined to 1.76 in Q2 2019 from 1.86 in Q1 2019.

Turk Telekom posted a net loss of TRY1.39bn in 2018 versus a net profit of TRY1.14bn in 2017.

On September 19, local private lenders Garanti, Is Bank and Akbank mandated Morgan Stanley as financial adviser for the sale of Levent Yapilandirma Yonetimi (LYY), a special purpose vehicle that holds a 55% stake in Turk Telekom.

 

In July 2018, the 55% stake was taken over by LYY, controlled by Akbank, Garanti Bank and Isbank.

Former owner of the stake, Otas—a unit of the Dubai-based Oger Telecom—borrowed $4.75bn, Turkey’s all-time-high corporate loan, in 2013 to refinance its acquisition of the stake. But it failed to keep up payments, making for the largest default in Turkish history and the largest M&A deal in 2018.

Akbank has $1.7bn worth of exposure to Otas’ loan while Garanti Bankasi contributed with $1bn and Is Bankasi with $500mn.

In November 2005, Oger Telecom, owned by the Lebanese Hariri family, took over the stake for a period of 21 years in the largest privatisation tender in Turkish history for a consideration of $6.55bn.

Since the privatisation deal is to end in 2026, it is thought that it will not be easy for Turkish lenders to sell the stake.

The announcement regarding the mandate of Morgan Stanley for the stake sale came after the banking watchdog BDDK instructed on September 17 banks to convert TRY46bn in loans to non-performing loans (NPLs) and provision for losses by year-end.