Dünya – US-based investment bank Goldman Sachs has entered into a partnership with the Turkish division of the Azeri state oil company SOCAR for a 13 percent stake acquisition deal worth USD 1.3 billion.
The biggest industrial investor in the country with a portfolio size of USD 20 billion, SOCAR Türkiye is the majority shareholder of Türkiye’s largest petrochemicals maker Petkim as well as the soon-to-be-operational container port Petlim and Star Refinery, under construction in Izmir’s Aliaga district. The company is also the main shareholder in the Trans Anatolian Pipeline Project (TANAP), which will carry natural gas from the Azeri gas fields to Europe through Türkiye.
“This partnership underscores the strong confidence in Türkiye and in SOCAR Türkiye, which is on track to become Türkiye’s second largest holding once the Star Refinery and related projects are completed by 2018”, SOCAR Türkiye CEO Kenan Yavuz said in a statement about the stake sell.
Yavuz added that the funds raised from the deal will cover the debts of SOCAR Türkiye’s earlier projects, amounting to USD 1 billion.
The Azeri company’s largest investment in Türkiye, the USD 5 billion Star Refinery, will significantly reduce the country's dependency on the imports of petroleum derivatives when it reaches operational stage in 2018.