Turkey's Competition Board has approved the sale of state-run petrochemicals company Petkim to the second highest bidder in a July tender, the Anatolia news agency reported Friday. A consortium of the Azerbaijani oil company Socar, Turkey's Turcas and Saudi-based Injaz Projects had made the second highest bid of 2.04 billion dollars (1.39 billion euros) for a 51-percent stake in the company.
The board did not give a reason as to why the tender was not awarded to the highest bidder, a consortium of the Kazakh Caspi Neft and Eurasia companies, the Russian bank Troika Dialogue and a number of Kazakh investors, which offered 2.05 billion dollars.
Turkish newspapers reported after the tender that 65 percent of Troika Dialogue's shares belonged to a major Russian-Armenian investor described as a chief financier of the Armenian diaspora.
Armenians have for years been pushing for the recognition as genocide of the mass killings of their kinsmen during World War I under the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey's predecessor. Ankara categorically rejects the genocide label. The Competition Board's decision is subject to approval by the Privatisation Board for the take-over to be finalised.
Turkey held a first tender for 88.86 percent of Petkim in June 2003, which the controversial business family Uzan won with a bid of 605 million dollars. But the deal was cancelled two months later when the financially-strapped Uzans failed to fulfil required conditions.
A second tender in August 2003 failed for lack of investor interest. In April 2005, 34.5 percent of the company's shares were sold to Turkish and foreign investors in a public offering worth 267 million dollars. About 39 percent of Petkim shares are currently traded on tple.
It posted a net profit of 41 million dollars in 2006. Privatisation is a key element in Turkey's economic programme, backed by a 10-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, as it recovers from two severe financial crises in 1999 and 2001.