Turkey’s TAV Airports has secured foreign financing of €300mn to acquire a stake in Turkey’s third largest airport, Antalya, CEO Sani Sener told Reuters on March 23. Some €60mn of TAV’s own resources would also be put into buying the stake, amounting to 49%, he reportedly added.

Antalya is a popular destination for domestic and foreign tourists on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast but like the whole of the country’s tourism industy it was badly hit by the plunge in European and Russian visitor rates across 2016 and much of 2017 caused by factors including a wave of terrorist attacks, the shooting down of a Russian fighter-bomber that caused Moscow to ban charter flights and the state of emergency brought in after the attempted coup in July 2016 which has particularly angered Berlin and Brussels following sweeping purges which, it is claimed, have shown little regard for basic human rights. However, there have been no major terrorist attacks in Turkey for over a year, while Russia and Turkey have reset relations. A substantial rebound in tourism is in evidence, though it has much relied on offering giveaway prices in order to tempt tourists back.

TAV unveiled the Antalya purchase deal last month.

TAV Airports is presently  looking at seven airports in Africa, the Turkic Republics and Asia for possible acquisitions, Sener also told the news agency on the sidelines of an economy summit in the mountain resort of Uludag in northwest Turkey. Sener reportedly added that the company had heard that Malaysian shareholders in Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen Airport were considering selling up to a 49% stake.