Date posted: January 27, 2014

İSTANBUL
Turkey’s leading participation bank, Bank Asya, has sold part of a stake in a retail chain to help boost its capital adequacy ratios and foresees growth in 2014, the bank said in a written statement on Sunday.

“Bank Asya expects to raise its total capital by TL 300 million to TL 1.2 billion. … We sold an 18 percent stake in the retail chain A101 as part of this plan,” the bank said. Bank Asya said its capital adequacy ratio is 14.8 percent — well above the conventionally accepted minimum level of 12 percent — and that it expects to enjoy further growth in 2014. The bank said it expects the capital adequacy ratio to reach 17 percent, making it one of the five strongest (in capital) banks in Turkey. Previously, the bank held 21.84 percent of the shares in A101.

The decision to sell the A101 shares comes amid efforts to insulate the bank against future economic and financial shocks, particularly following a recent withdrawal of assets in large quantities. Certain companies have withdrawn capital from Bank Asya allegedly as part of a plan to sink the bank orchestrated by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Erdoğan vowed to clamp down on Turkey’s largest Islamic group, the Hizmet movement — with which Bank Asya is affiliated — since he believes that the Hizmet movement is behind an ongoing corruption probe that has implicated top government officials.

The bank said last week it “overcame the stress test successfully.”

Bank Asya posted a profit of TL 61 million for the third quarter of 2013. The bank increased its net profits by 9.5 percent in the third quarter over the second, with profits totaling TL 161 million in the first nine months of that year. It also increased its assets by 33 percent to TL 28.4 billion, cash loans by 30 percent to TL 21.2 billion, reserves by 24 percent to TL 19.5 billion and equities by 6 percent to TL 2.5 billion in the same period.

Source: Todays Zaman , January 26, 2014

Tags: Hizmet and business | Turkey |