The Turkish Update - September 2007

This is the September

2007 edition of our email news service - The Turkish Update - which is issued

every month. Our aim is to provide a concise and easy-to-read summary of

developments in Turkey which may be of interest to our clients. If you have any

comments please click on the 'Do you have a question for the author?>' button to let us know your thoughts

and any ideas that could enhance this service.

General

Abdullah Gul was

elected to the Presidency of Turkey (with 399 affirmative votes) in the third

round of parliamentary elections on 28 August. Gul was previously the foreign

minister in the Turkish Government.

Media

In April, the SDIF

took over Sabah and ATV when the fund found out that former owner of the

companies, Dinc Bilgin, and the last owner, Turgay Ciner, concealed some

protocols and contracts from the SDIF. Following this takeover the SDIF decided

to sell the Sabah-ATV Group and set the date of the auction to 7 November. The

estimated sale value of the group, which contains the daily Sabah, the TV

channel ATV, four other smaller newspapers, one radio station, some magazines,

one printing house, broadcasting rights and some other assets, is US$1.1bn. The

pre-qualification application deadline is 15 October and final bids will be

collected on 6 November.

Competition

Opinion of the

Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) within the framework of the CommuniquÈ no.

1998/4 regarding the sale of Merkez Group Media Companies by the Saving Deposit

Insurance Fund (SDIF), 10 August 2007. With its opinion, the TCA has barred

Dogan and Cukurova Groups from participating in the tender sale of Merkez

Group's media companies.

The TCA declared that

it would not give consent to the acquisition of Merkez Group's rights and

assets by Dogan Group in the markets of television broadcasting, marketing

services for advertisement places, production services, newspaper and magazine

publishing, printing and distribution. For Cukurova Group the TCA's concern is

limited to the acquisition of Merkez Group's rights and assets related to its

ATV channel, marketing services for advertisement places and production

services related to the ATV channel.

Corporate And

Commercial/Capital Markets

CommuniquÈ amending

the CommuniquÈ on the Companies that will provide Valuation Service pursuant to

Capital Market Legislation and on the Principles of Entering these Companies to

the List by the Board (Official Gazette No. 26601, 2 August 2007) lists the

companies that...