ANKARA
Alfa Telecom Turkey, the Turkish subsidiary of Russia's Alfa Telecom, said Tuesday it offered a $2.8 billion bid to buy a 13.76 percent stake in Turkey's largest mobile phone operator, Turkcell.
According to Turkcell’s statement to Turkey’s Public Disclosure Platform, Alfa's bid was $54.902 million per share for 51 B-class Turkcell shares, which was given to Turkey’s state-run lender Ziraat bank as a loan.
In July 2014, Cukurova Holding paid Russia’s Alfa Group $1.6 billion to recover a disputed stake after signing a loan agreement with Ziraat.
Turkcell is Turkey's largest mobile phone operator with about 35 million subscribers or about half of the entire Turkish market.
Alfa Telecom is a part of Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group.
Turkcell shares increased to around three percent to 12.90 Turkish liras per share at Borsa Istanbul after the bid.
The Turkcell market value has increased by 700 million Turkish liras to 28.3 billion Turkish liras.
