TFI TAB Food Investments (TFI TAB Gida), the exclusive franchisee for Burger King in Turkey and China, has filed with the SEC to raise up to $400mn in an initial public offering (IPO) in New York.

Proceeds from the offering will be used to repay $75mn the company borrowed from Turkish lender Yapi Kredi back in 2013, TFI said in a November 14 statement.

The company has applied to list its American depositary shares (ADSs) on the Nasdaq Global Select Market but has not yet decided how many it will offer.

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are acting as bookrunners and representatives for the proposed offering.

TFI, one of the world's largest global restaurant operators by the number of restaurants, operates a broad range of quick service restaurants, or QSRs, mainly in Turkey and China.

As of September 30, it operated or sub-franchised 625 Burger King restaurants in Turkey. It is also the exclusive master franchisee of Popeyes, Arby's and Sbarro in Turkey.

In July 2012, TFI entered the Chinese market by becoming the exclusive master franchisee for Burger King. As of end-September, it operates 766 Burger King restaurants.

It operated a total of 1,822 restaurants at the end of September, up from 1,529 a year earlier.

Its revenues increased to TRY2.86bn last year from TRY2.29bn a year earlier. The company’s nine-month revenue rose by 42% to TRY2.9bn this year.

On a related note, Borsa Istanbul’s chairman Himmet Karadag said on November 14 that preparations were under way for around 12-13 large-scale IPOs on the Istanbul stock exchange next year. He did not provide other details on planned IPOs.