Turkey approves Tab Gida's IPO, biggest offering in five years

Turkey's Capital Markets Board (SPK) on Friday gave the green light to food service company TAB Gida's initial public offering, which is set to be the country's largest dollar-denominated IPO since 2018, Reuters reports.

Tab Gida, which owns franchise rights for Burger King, Popeyes and other companies, will raise 6.85 billion Turkish lira ($247 million) if all the shares are sold.

The company will offer approximately 20% of its shares at 130 pounds each, SPK reported. TFI TAB shareholder Gida Yatirimlari will sell some shares along with a capital increase.

The proceeds from the IPO will be used to finance new restaurant openings, a solar plant and debt reduction.

The number of public offerings has increased this year in Turkey as domestic retail investors have turned to the stock market, but the listings have mostly been of smaller companies, raising about $60 million on average.

The Financial Times (FT) wrote, towards the end of August, that the Istanbul Stock Exchange (Borsa Istanbul) was, this year, more successful in attracting initial public offerings than the much larger markets in London, Frankfurt and Milan, thanks to the boom- of transactions made by retail investors in Turkey.

So far, 30 companies have sold shares in IPOs on Borsa Istanbul, raising a total of $1.9 billion, according to Dealogic data. The volume of transactions propelled Istanbul into the top ten global stock exchanges after IPOs in 2023, ahead of much larger stock markets in Western Europe and South Korea, notes the quoted source.

Turkey is benefiting from the fact that local retail investors are becoming an increasingly influential part of the market. As foreign capital fled the market over fears of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's unconventional economic policies, retail investors turned to stocks hoping to make big profits to offset the effects of a crisis caused by persistent inflation and a falling lira.

The number of investors in Turkish stocks has more than quadrupled to 5.1 million since the start of 2019, according to the Capital Markets Association of Turkey. The holdings of individual investors in the stock market of Turkey doubled in the mentioned period, reaching 38%, mentions FT.

In August, the chain of Baydöner restaurants (specializing in kebabs) raised $14 million on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Other larger companies have floated, including Kaleseramik, a ceramic tile maker controlled by Turkish industrial conglomerate Kale Group, which raised $101 million in July.