In Turkey, Western Companies Find Stability and Growth

Turkey’s split personality has often left it caught between two worlds. Some European nations have vocally opposed the country’s attempts to build closer ties with the West. And many of its Middle Eastern neighbors have been wary of the avidly secular state.

Now, the country’s identity is an advantage for deal makers. Turkey doesn’t have the economic baggage of its European neighbors, which are dealing with the sovereign debt crisis. With a relatively stable government, it has also angled for a more prominent role in the Middle East, as countries like Syria and Libya continue to face turmoil.

The combination of economic growth and political stability has attracted cash-rich companies looking to make acquisitions. So far this year, deal volume has totaled $10.6 billion, ahead of European countries like Austria, Portugal and the Czech Republic. In 2010, mergers and acquisitions reached $25.6 billion, up from $1.1 billion a decade ago.

“The economic backdrop in Turkey is better than in other European economies and has been rebounding faster,” Emre Yildirim, an executive director at JPMorgan Chase who focuses on Turkish mergers and acquisitions. “It’s a large country that’s growing quickly, so it makes strategic sense for companies to take a look.”

The country’s rapid growth has been a critical factor for foreign buyers. Turkey’s gross domestic product is on track to increase by 8 percent this year.

It also has a growing middle class, an attractive characteristic to Western consumer product companies. The local population totals more than 73 million, almost the same size as Europe’s largest economy, Germany. And the country’s G.D.P per capita has more than doubled to $10,094 in the last decade, according to the World Bank

Turkey is hardly immune from the usual growing pains associated with emerging markets. Inflation hovers near 10 percent, affecting the country’s overall competitiveness. Reliance on debt-ridden Europe may also start to pinch. Roughly 50 percent of Turkish exports are bought by countries in the European Union, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a policy research organization based in Paris.

Still, Turkey “remains one of the good performers,” said Rauf Gönenç, chief economist for Turkey at the O.E.C.D. While growth is expected to slip to 3 percent next year, the country outpaces its European counterparts, many of which are heading for recession in 2012.

From a deal-making perspective, the region’s troubles may help spur activity, notably in the financial services sector. Over the last decade, European banks, including the National Bank of Greece and UniCredit of Italy, acquired local institutions as part of their debt-fueled expansion. Now, many of Europe’s banks, which are facing losses linked to their sovereign bond exposure, want to sell assets outside their local markets to meet new capital requirements.

One target could be DenizBank, the Turkish subsidiary of Dexia, the Franco-Belgian bank that received a $5.4 billion government bailout in October. As part of Dexia’s nationalization, the European bank has agreed to be broken up. Analysts say a number of relatively strong international players, including HSBC, are circling the local operations in Turkey.

“International banks may look to make disposals and sell profitable Turkish assets as part of their global deleveraging,” said Mr. Yildirim of JPMorgan.

Foreign companies are also trying to capitalize on the growing consumer demand.

Earlier this year, Diageo started moving to expand into the emerging markets, aiming to increase its revenue from such economies to 50 percent by 2015. Turkey was at the top of the list. Each year, more than one million people reach the country’s legal drinking age. And despite the country’s large Muslim population, local authorities encouraged foreign investment, said Andrew Morgan, president of Diageo’s European operations.

“Turkey has attractive G.D.P growth, is politically stable and has a big population,” Mr. Morgan said. “It’s a very important market for us.”

In August, Diageo bought Mey Içki, Turkey’s largest spirits company, from the private equity firm TPG Capital for $2.1 billion. The local business has more than an 80 percent market share in the local spirit Raki. It also operates roughly 50,000 outlets across Turkey that Diageo now uses to sell its international brands, such as Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff.

Other Western firms also are tapping into the local consumer market. In November, the brewer SABMiller agreed to buy a 24 percent stake in the Turkish beverage company Anadolu Efes in a deal worth $1.9 billion. To take advantage of rising domestic and international energy prices, the British investment firm Vallares, founded by Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP, bought the Turkish oil and gas exploration company Genel Energy for $2.1 billion.

Turkey’s renewed push to privatize state-owned industries has attracted international attention, too. As it has liberalized over the last 20 years, politicians have sold to the private sector stakes in much of Turkey’s energy and telecom industries. To further reduce the financial burden on state coffers, other government-backed businesses, like Turkish Airlines, which is 49 percent owned by the state, could soon be up for sale.

“Privatizations will include infrastructure, financial and energy assets,” said Richard Evans, a partner at the law firm Allen & Overy, which opened an office in Istanbul in December to capitalize on the growing mergers and acquisitions activity.

“Right now, Turkey is a much more attractive place to do business than Greece or Spain,” Mr. Evans said.

Mideast Private Equity Feels Chill of Regional Unrest – Managers Keen on Turkey

According to Retuers, private equity firms in the Middle East, grappling with regional political turmoil and investor unease about the global economy, face a grim immediate outlook but are making preparations for a hoped-for recovery in deal flow next year.

As the head of Global Dealings LLC, a boutique business development advisory to PEs in Turkey and the MENA region, I see too many PE firms chasing too few deals, particularly in Turkey. Valuations are getting out of touch creating a seller’s market. In our database, we have over 50 PE firms from different parts of the world with funds as large as KKR or Carlyle down to local PE start-up funds with $20-50 million.

Billions of dollars collected in previous years by regional funds sit untouched as firms nibble for deals, with many sellers still reluctant to offload assets at bargain prices.

“We have to prepare for a long winter,” said Karim El Solh, chief executive of Abu Dhabi-based Gulf Capital.

“You have to keep star managers while shedding unproductive staff. Help portfolio companies secure sufficient liquidity to survive.”

The Middle East and North Africa have been wracked by political upheaval and economic dislocation in 2011 as regimes fall or teeter in several states, including Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

The region is home to private equity players such as the United Arab Emirates’ Abraaj Capital, the region’s largest local firm, Bahrain’s Investcorp, and Egypt’s Citadel Capital.

Only eight private equity and venture capital deals were closed in the Middle East during the first seven months of this year, according to a report by Al Masah Capital, compared to 24 deals in all of 2010.

Among this year’s deals, Standard Chartered’s private equity arm bought a minority stake in a unit of Saudi Binladin Group for $75 million in August, while Abraaj acquired the North African private equity platform of Amundi, a French asset manager jointly owned by Societe Generale and Credit Agricole.

U.S.-based private equity giant Carlyle is close to taking a 42 percent stake in a family-owned Saudi Arabian food products firm, according to two sources familiar with the potential deal.

Even before this year’s slump, private equity activity in the Middle East was hit hard by the global credit crisis of 2008-2009. New private equity investments in the region dropped from 97 deals worth $7.5 billion in 2007 to 24 deals worth just $148 million in 2010, according to a Gulf Capital report.

Regional private equity managers have raised $23.13 billion over the past decade but only $14.75 billion has been deployed, the report said. Excluding withdrawals and cancellations, some $5 billion remains unused, Gulf Capital calculated.

“The most visible impact of the political upheaval is the ability to raise funds,” said Imad Ghandour, managing partner at fund manager Cedar Bridge Partners.

“Local LPs are not interested in a blind pool of capital and the international investors are very risk averse when it comes to the region.”

The flip side to the market gloom, which has made banks reluctant to lend and left initial public offer activity stagnant, is limited competition for investments, creating a relatively clear playing field for the private equity firms.

“Now is the time to look for opportunities and the right time to get good valuations,” said James Tanner, head of private equity at Investcorp. “We’re seeing better deal flow at lower valuations, better businesses and no competition.”

Carlyle, which has put Egypt investment plans on hold because of the turmoil there, is set to close two private equity deals in Saudi Arabia and Turkey before the end of this year and hopes to close as many as three Middle East deals in 2012, according to its regional head.

Carlyle managing director Walid Musallam said solid economic performances in Turkey and the Gulf Arab region, Saudi Arabia in particular, offered attractive investment opportunities.

Other private equity players are also on the prowl. Investcorp is looking to spend more than $400 million on stakes in companies in Turkey and the Gulf in the next two years, while Gulf Capital is in the final stages of acquiring majority stakes in four regional firms, with closing targeted for the first quarter of next year.

Another sign of deep-pocketed interest in the region is a business licence given to U.S. private equity firm KKR & Co LP by Saudi regulator Capital Markets Authority in June.

“Despite a gloomy big picture, the situation is good on a micro-level,” Tanner said. “I’m pretty positive about the outlook but yet, it is going to be a long winter.”

Erdogan’s Way – Time’s Cover Article

Red carpets, honor guards and gun salutes are for garden-variety visiting politicians and monarchs: for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cairo put on the kind of reception usually reserved for rock stars. Turkey’s Prime Minister was greeted at the airport by thousands of cheering fans, many holding aloft posters of their hero. Fusillades of flashbulbs turned night into day. Journalists eager for a quote thrust microphones into Erdogan’s face, but he was drowned out by the chanting throngs. “Erdogan! Erdogan! A real Muslim and not a coward,” went one incantation. Another: “Turkey and Egypt are a single fist.”

Totalitarian regimes routinely orchestrate massive, faux-spontaneous welcomes for visiting dignitaries, but the beleaguered interim administration in Cairo didn’t need to rent a crowd for Erdogan: the Turkish leader is genuinely popular across the Arab world. He was ranked the most admired world leader in a 2010 poll of Arabs by the University of Maryland in conjunction with Zogby International. His stock has soared higher still since the Arab Spring. In countries where young people have risen against old tyrannies, many cite Erdogan as the kind of leader they would like to have instead. (Read “Prime Minister Erdogan: Turkey’s Man of The People.”)

A good politician knows how to milk his moment: the Cairo visit was the first leg of Erdogan’s triumphant mid-September sweep through the newly liberated North African states. There were tumultuous welcomes, too, in Tunis and Tripoli. Then it was time for Erdogan to take a bow on the biggest stage. The trip culminated at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, where President Obama, ignoring Erdogan’s recent criticism of U.S. policy in the Middle East and his flaming diplomatic row with Israel, lauded him for showing “great leadership” in the region.

It’s not every day that a U.S. President and the Arab street are of one mind. But like the throngs chanting Erdogan’s name (not all of them aware it is pronounced Erd-waan; the g is silent) in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Obama is hoping that the new governments emerging from the ashes of old dictatorships will look a lot like the one the Prime Minister has built over the past eight years. Erdogan has greatly enhanced Turkey’s international reputation, has reined in its once omnipotent military, has pursued economic policies that have trebled per capita income and unleashed new entrepreneurship, and has for the most part maintained a pro-West stance.

He has, it is true, also displayed an occasional autocratic streak, running roughshod over political rivals, tossing enemies into jail and intimidating the media. Many political analysts, in Turkey and the West, suspect his desire to rewrite the constitution is designed to amass more executive power. But to his admirers, these failings pale against his successes. Democratic, economically ascendant and internationally admired: as political templates go, Turkey’s is pretty irresistible to people shaking off decades of authoritarian, impoverishing rule — and for Westerners worried about what those people might do next. (See pictures of homelessness in Istanbul.)

But perhaps its greatest virtue, in the eyes of many Middle Eastern beholders, is that the Turkish model was forged by an Islamist: Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party — better known by its Turkish acronym, AKP — have traditionally drawn support from the country’s religious and conservative classes and are regarded with suspicion by secular absolutists. For Arab Islamists, Turkey’s success is proof that they can modernize their countries without breaking away from their religious moorings. Erdogan’s Western admirers see it the other way around: proof that political Islam needn’t be an enemy of modernity. And if any evidence were needed that Erdogan’s way leads to political success, the AKP won its third general election in June, by a landslide.

But can Erdogan’s way lead Egypt, Tunisia and Libya to the political stability and economic strength Turkey now enjoys? Erdogan claims to be ambivalent whether Arab states seek to emulate his success. “If they want our help, we’ll provide any assistance they need,” he told TIME in an interview during his visit to New York. “We do not have a mentality of exporting our system.” But he doesn’t deny reaching out to the potential leaders of the Arab Spring states: “I intentionally wanted to talk to the presidential candidates, the new political parties there, and I had the opportunity to get together with lots of people in order to grasp the situation.”

Should Recep Tayyip Erdogan be TIME’s Person of the Year 2011? Cast your vote here.

His message to them: be good Muslims, but make sure your constitution is, like Turkey’s, secular. “Do not fear secularism, because it does not mean being an enemy of religion,” he said in an interview on Egyptian TV. “I hope the new regime in Egypt will be secular.” This came as a shock to some in the Muslim Brotherhood, who retorted that they didn’t need lessons from the Turk. Feathers were soon smoothed, but the episode was a reminder that Turkish Islamism, rooted in a secular democratic tradition, is not so easily transplanted to societies where neither secularism nor democracy is well understood. The template, says Michael Werz, a Turkey expert at the Center for American Progress, “can be inspirational for Arab Islamist parties, but it can’t be a model.”

All the same, many politicians in the Arab Spring countries are plainly modeling themselves after the Turkish leader. “Erdogan wears a business suit, but he prays in the mosque. That is something we can identify with,” Essam Erian, a top leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, told me in Cairo in the summer. (There’s an obvious echo in the name of the Brotherhood’s new political arm: Freedom and Justice Party.) Abdelhamid Jlassi, a leader of Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda party was just as starry-eyed when I met him in Tunis a few days later. “Erdogan speaks our language,” he told me. “When he speaks, we listen.” (Watch TIME’s video “Turkey’s Unconventional Muslim Minority.”)

Ennahda has since won a large plurality in Tunisia’s first free elections, on Oct. 23, to form an assembly that will write a new constitution. The Muslim Brotherhood is expected to do just as well in elections scheduled beginning in late November. Libya is not expected to hold elections until the middle of next year, but there, too, Islamist groups are expected to be significant players. Where — and to whom — they look for inspiration could change the way the world views them.

The Ideal Islamist for some western observers, the rise of political Islam conjures up visions of extremist, reactionary states, like Afghanistan under the Taliban or Iran. That limited view informed the anxiety that greeted the AKP’s 2002 election victory. Even Turkish secularists feared Erdogan would seek to undo the separation of mosque and state that is the foundation of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey. They pointed to comments Erdogan made in the 1990s, as mayor of Istanbul, like this one: “Democracy is a tram that gets you to your destination, and then you get off.” Turkey’s decision not to participate in the 2003 Iraq war led to fears that Erdogan would take his country out of NATO and turn away from the West.

But AKP’s critics were wrong: Turkey didn’t become another Iran. Apart from a quiet repeal of a long-standing ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities last year, Erdogan’s policies have hardly been an assault on Ataturk’s secular legacy. (Domestic critics complain, however, of an Islamist agenda in the steep hiking of taxes on alcohol and cigarettes.) And far from drifting away from the West, Erdogan pushed harder than his secular predecessors for the ultimate Western endorsement: admission into the European Union, whose repeated cold-shouldering of Ankara says more about European hangups than Turkey’s qualifications. Erdogan tells TIME he is “still determined” to pursue E.U. membership but can’t help smiling at the irony that his country, once described as “the sick man of Europe,” is now economically ascendant, while many members of the club that won’t admit him are all but bankrupt.

From Zero Problems … For all its Islamist leanings, the AKP government also reached out to Jewish Israel and the secular Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad; previous governments in Ankara had at best cool relations with Damascus. There were overtures, too, to neighbors in the Balkans and around the Black Sea, and even to Armenia, with which Turkey has long-standing historical hostilities. These were all consistent with a doctrine Erdogan and his Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, dubbed Zero Problems: Turkey would mend fences with all neighbors and make friends anew in the wider world. (Read “Why Syria and Turkey Are Suddenly Far Apart on Arab Spring Protests.”)

It worked: Erdogan seemed to form a close bond with Assad, even inviting the Syrian dictator to vacation in Turkey. And Turkey quickly became Israel’s best friend in the Islamic world — that bar was, admittedly, low.

Zero Problems also served Turkey’s economic ambitions. Turkish entrepreneurs, nudged along by the government — but without the overwhelming financial backing of the state enjoyed by, say, Chinese companies — were able to rapidly grow business in the immediate neighborhood and farther afield, notably in Africa. Turkish construction companies in particular fanned out across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, competing with (and often beating) Chinese rivals.

Read “Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan Faces Many Challenges in Third Term.”

There was prosperity at home too: since the AKP first came to power, Turkey’s GDP has trebled, the budget deficit has fallen by two-thirds. From 2002 to ’10, GDP grew by a compounded annual rate of 4.8%, more than Russia, Brazil and South Korea. In 2010, Turkey’s GDP grew 8.9%; the E.U.’s grew 1.9%. Already the world’s 17th largest economy, behind South Korea, Spain and Canada, Turkey is expected to slow this year, and some analysts warn that its economy is in danger of overheating. But compared with much of Europe, it is a picture of health.

Emboldened by economic and foreign policy successes, Erdogan grew more ambitious abroad. With U.S. support, he sought to turn Turkey into a moderator of other regional rifts, bringing Syria and Israel as close as they have ever come to peace talks. That dream was dashed in December 2008, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the start of Operation Cast Lead, a three-week assault on Gaza that left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. Israel said it was provoked by rockets fired from Gaza; Syria withdrew from Erdogan-brokered negotiations. (Read “Turkey Crisis: Unconditional U.S. Backing Has Helped Israel to Isolate Itself.”)

Associates of the Turkish leader say he was personally affronted. Olmert, he felt, had left him holding the bag. His anger boiled over at a panel discussion in Davos, when he stormed off after telling Israeli President Shimon Peres, “You know very well how to kill.”

Relations with Israel limped along for a while before breaking down completely in May 2010, when Israeli commandos halted a Turkish-led aid flotilla bound for Gaza. In international waters, the commandos rappelled down into the Mavi Marmara, a ship belonging to a Turkish charity. In the fighting that broke out, eight Turks and one Turkish American were killed. Israel says its soldiers were attacked on board.

Turkey has since all but broken off relations with Israel. Erdogan says nothing short of a formal apology and the lifting of Israel’s blockade of Gaza will repair a once promising friendship. “The Israeli government is not being honest at all,” he tells TIME. Israel has responded with angry rhetoric of its own: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested one way to get back at Erdogan would be to support the Kurdish terrorist group known as the PKK, which has recently stepped up attacks against Turkish military and civilian targets. (Turkey accepted Israel’s aid after a devastating Oct. 23 earthquake in Van province killed over 600, but Davutoglu said that would not soften Turkey’s position.)

… To Plenty of Problems The Arab Spring finally made the Zero Problems doctrine untenable. Although Erdogan was ahead of many Western leaders in calling for Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to step down in the face of a popular uprising, he was hesitant to send the same message to Syria’s Assad and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi: Turkey had sizable business interests and expat populations in both countries. Erdogan initially resisted pressure to join the NATO campaign against Gaddafi and maintained that his relationship with Assad would allow him to coax the Syrian leader into implementing political reforms. “Erdogan thought of himself as Assad’s tutor,” says F. Stephen Larrabee, an expert on Turkey at the Rand Corp. “He overestimated his ability to persuade Assad.” (Read “How Syria and Libya Got to Be Turkey’s Headaches.”)

Erdogan belatedly changed his mind and then acted decisively: Turkey backed Libya’s transitional council against Gaddafi, and once Assad had reneged on his promise of reforms (another slight Erdogan took personally), it began calling for regime change in Damascus. Whereas once he had invited the Assad family to holiday in Turkey, Erdogan grew openly contemptuous of the Syrian strongman. “It is impossible to preserve my friendship with people who are allegedly leaders when they are attacking their own people,” he says. Turkey now provides shelter not only to refugees from Assad’s crackdown but also to opposition groups that are actively plotting his downfall.

The break with Israel and Syria may have dashed Erdogan’s hopes of being a regional peacemaker. It also greatly complicates matters for the U.S., which had hoped Turkey could gradually draw Syria away from the Iranian sphere of influence. Nor does it help that the U.S.’s two closest allies in the region, Turkey and Israel, are now at loggerheads. Pro-Israel Congressmen have threatened to block military supplies to Turkey, giving the White House yet another brush fire to put out.

Read “Israel and Turkey: How a Close Relationship Disintegrated.”

The consequences for Turkey are uncertain. Erdogan’s anti-Israel rhetoric plays well with the AKP voter base and Arab audiences. But by turning on Assad, says Rand’s Larrabee, Erdogan also risks antagonizing Syria’s sponsor, Iran. Relations with Tehran have already cooled since Turkey agreed in September to install new NATO radar systems designed to detect missiles launched from Iran. Erdogan long pushed back against the radars for fear of antagonizing the Iranians. Now Turkish officials are seeking cover behind the fig leaf that data from the systems will not be shared with Israel; NATO says that’s just not true. So much for Zero Problems.

The New Ottoman Empire Inevitably, Erdogan’s new foreign policy doctrine, aimed at increasing Turkey’s political and economic influence in the Middle East and North Africa, has been dubbed “neo-Ottoman,” after the dynasty that ruled much of the Muslim world from Istanbul for 600 years until shortly after World War I. Erdogan doesn’t shirk from the comparison. “Of course, the empire had some beautiful parts and some not-so-beautiful parts,” he says. “It’s a very natural right for us to use what was beautiful about the Ottoman Empire today.” Turkish officials envision an arrangement similar to the British Commonwealth, with a constellation of Balkan, East European and Arab states all looking to Istanbul for benign guidance. (See photos of the streets of Istanbul.)

But invoking a long-gone — and not especially lamented — empire is no basis for foreign policy. The competition for influence in the new Middle East emerging from the Arab Spring is bound to be fierce. Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the region’s traditional powers; there are American and European fingers in the pie too. Relative newcomers China and India have a growing economic interest in the region. Turkey’s head start in the Arab Spring countries — it is already one of the largest investors in Egypt and Libya — will be difficult to maintain.

If there’s growing competition for Turkey abroad, for Erdogan there are also growing problems at home. That autocratic tendency has become more pronounced since June’s huge election win. Political rivals complain that he has never quite shaken off the bullying streak he developed in the mean streets of Istanbul’s Kasimpasa neighborhood. Despite his lofty position, he rarely misses a chance to rub his opponents’ noses in the dirt, often using crude rhetoric unbecoming of a leader who aspires to statesmanship. He is notoriously thin-skinned about criticism and paranoid about coups. (This last is perhaps understandable: the Turkish military overthrew four elected governments in the 40 years before the AKP’s 2002 victory.) For all its desire for Turkey to be seen as a modern state equal in freedoms to any in Europe, his government has jailed 68 journalists, accusing them of complicity in coup plots. On a recent trip to Istanbul, two top journalists agreed to talk with me about Erdogan only if I promised not to name them.

Erdogan’s treatment of Turkey’s Kurdish minority had fluctuated between promises of political compromise and old-fashioned military repression. Violence has flared in recent months after a series of tit-for-tat attacks between the PKK and Turkish forces. Sezgin Tanrikulu, deputy chairman of the main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, scoffs at Erdogan’s international popularity: “Before Turkey can be held up as a role model for the Middle East, it needs to sort out its own domestic conflicts.” (Read “Why Turkey’s Erdogan Is Greeted like a Rock Star in Egypt.”)

Conflicts in the neighborhood will have an impact on Turkey’s economy: trade with Syria, a major partner, is imperiled by Erdogan’s open falling out with Assad. The longer the dictatorship lingers in Damascus, the greater the cost. Antagonistic relations with Israel have not yet had a great economic effect, mainly because trade between the two countries is relatively small.

In the political arena, Erdogan’s next challenge is to rewrite the Turkish constitution. Fears that he will dilute Turkey’s secularism have been replaced by a growing concern that he will push for executive power to be concentrated in the office of the President, and then seek that office himself. The Turkish presidency is currently a mostly ornamental position, held by Erdogan’s longtime ally Abdullah Gul. Istanbul salons are rife with talk of the two men switching roles after the constitution is rewritten, drawing inevitable comparisons to the Medvedev-Putin swap in Moscow. It’s a testament to how far the Islamist icon has come that his critics no longer worry that he may turn Turkey into another Iran. They now fear he will turn it into another Russia.

Down with the Eurozone by Nouriel Roubini

We have a guest blogger today, Nouriel Roubini whom I had the pleasure to meet at a private event in Istanbul. He is known as “Mr. Doom” in his deeply pessimistic global outlook. However, even his natural tendancies may not be enough to characterize the deep trouble Euope finds itself in.

Turkey has been waiting for decades to become a EU member. Admittedly, I always believed Turkey would be better off by doing what Norway and England did in the end. Who knows, good things come to those who wait.

Here’s Roubini’s excellent analysis.

NEW YORK – The eurozone crisis seems to be reaching its climax, with Greece on the verge of default and an inglorious exit from the monetary union, and now Italy on the verge of losing market access. But the eurozone’s problems are much deeper. They are structural, and they severely affect at least four other economies: Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus, and Spain.

For the last decade, the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) were the eurozone’s consumers of first and last resort, spending more than their income and running ever-larger current-account deficits. Meanwhile, the eurozone core (Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and France) comprised the producers of first and last resort, spending below their incomes and running ever-larger current-account surpluses.

These external imbalances were also driven by the euro’s strength since 2002, and by the divergence in real exchange rates and competitiveness within the eurozone. Unit labor costs fell in Germany and other parts of the core (as wage growth lagged that of productivity), leading to a real depreciation and rising current-account surpluses, while the reverse occurred in the PIIGS (and Cyprus), leading to real appreciation and widening current-account deficits. In Ireland and Spain, private savings collapsed, and a housing bubble fueled excessive consumption, while in Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, and Italy, it was excessive fiscal deficits that exacerbated external imbalances.

The resulting build-up of private and public debt in over-spending countries became unmanageable when housing bubbles burst (Ireland and Spain) and current-account deficits, fiscal gaps, or both became unsustainable throughout the eurozone’s periphery. Moreover, the peripheral countries’ large current-account deficits, fueled as they were by excessive consumption, were accompanied by economic stagnation and loss of competitiveness.

So, now what?

Symmetrical reflation is the best option for restoring growth and competitiveness on the eurozone’s periphery while undertaking necessary austerity measures and structural reforms. This implies significant easing of monetary policy by the European Central Bank; provision of unlimited lender-of-last-resort support to illiquid but potentially solvent economies; a sharp depreciation of the euro, which would turn current-account deficits into surpluses; and fiscal stimulus in the core if the periphery is forced into austerity.

Unfortunately, Germany and the ECB oppose this option, owing to the prospect of a temporary dose of modestly higher inflation in the core relative to the periphery.

The bitter medicine that Germany and the ECB want to impose on the periphery – the second option – is recessionary deflation: fiscal austerity, structural reforms to boost productivity growth and reduce unit labor costs, and real depreciation via price adjustment, as opposed to nominal exchange-rate adjustment.

The problems with this option are many. Fiscal austerity, while necessary, means a deeper recession in the short term. Even structural reform reduces output in the short run, because it requires firing workers, shutting down money-losing firms, and gradually reallocating labor and capital to emerging new industries. So, to prevent a spiral of ever-deepening recession, the periphery needs real depreciation to improve its external deficit. But even if prices and wages were to fall by 30% over the next few years (which would most likely be socially and politically unsustainable), the real value of debt would increase sharply, worsening the insolvency of governments and private debtors.

In short, the eurozone’s periphery is now subject to the paradox of thrift: increasing savings too much, too fast leads to renewed recession and makes debts even more unsustainable. And that paradox is now affecting even the core.

If the peripheral countries remain mired in a deflationary trap of high debt, falling output, weak competitiveness, and structural external deficits, eventually they will be tempted by a third option: default and exit from the eurozone. This would enable them to revive economic growth and competitiveness through a depreciation of new national currencies.

Of course, such a disorderly eurozone break-up would be as severe a shock as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, if not worse. Avoiding it would compel the eurozone’s core economies to embrace the fourth and final option: bribing the periphery to remain in a low-growth uncompetitive state. This would require accepting massive losses on public and private debt, as well as enormous transfer payments that boost the periphery’s income while its output stagnates.

Italy has done something similar for decades, with its northern regions subsidizing the poorer Mezzogiorno. But such permanent fiscal transfers are politically impossible in the eurozone, where Germans are Germans and Greeks are Greeks.

That also means that Germany and the ECB have less power than they seem to believe. Unless they abandon asymmetric adjustment (recessionary deflation), which concentrates all of the pain in the periphery, in favor of a more symmetrical approach (austerity and structural reforms on the periphery, combined with eurozone-wide reflation), the monetary union’s slow-developing train wreck will accelerate as peripheral countries default and exit.

The recent chaos in Greece and Italy may be the first step in this process. Clearly, the eurozone’s muddle-through approach no longer works. Unless the eurozone moves toward greater economic, fiscal, and political integration (on a path consistent with short-term restoration of growth, competitiveness, and debt sustainability, which are needed to resolve unsustainable debt and reduce chronic fiscal and external deficits), recessionary deflation will certainly lead to a disorderly break-up.

With Italy too big to fail, too big to save, and now at the point of no return, the endgame for the eurozone has begun. Sequential, coercive restructurings of debt will come first, and then exits from the monetary union that will eventually lead to the eurozone’s disintegration.

Nouriel Roubini is professor of economics at the Stern School of Business, New York University.

Rethinking How To Drive Change in a Culture of Change: A Young Turk’s Dealings

Driving change in Turkey is like orchestrating a rapid moving street band; You need to manage multiple layers of change within the course of change. The country is in a constant state of change at both micro and macro level. Business world is dominated by family businesses – both large and small.

But how do you transform a family owned business especially into its 2nd or 3rd generation? How do you do it sucessfully? How can you do it in a fast developing market like Turkey?

Most of my fifteen years of track record and experience in the US and China did not help me much. It will certainly not help you as an expat. As Socrates said: “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing“.

I had three unique experiences that helped me become a Young Turk (the group who in 1908 initiated movement that eventually ended the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan):

  1. Sabanci Holding: I was headhunted by Güler Sabanci to join her core team at Sabanci Group to help a 3rd generation family owned business transform into a modern sustainable corporate governance that included stratgeic planning, focusing on five core businesses, managing a portfolio of companies with a private equity rigor and discipline, a dynamic sustainable information technology competency and infrastructure.
  2. AvivaSA: (A mearket leader in life and pension with over $2.5 billion dollars in premiums and funds managed)  We built industry’s largest distribution capacity with bancassurance, direct salesforce, dealers, call center and web.
  3. Aksigorta: (A market leader in health insurance and one of top 3 players in property & casualty sector in Turkey) We restructured the firm along each core business process and back office and merged it with Ageas in an $710 million joint-venture, with highest multiple ever paid in the region.

So as a Young Turk, what did I learn? Here are my own five lessons learned for anyone who has a change mandate in Turkey or other emerging markets:

  • Appoint the Right Boss (Leader): Busines life in Turkey is very formal and hierarchical and the management style tends to be more autocratic than the western style of leadership.  For example, Atatürk means “the father of Turks”. Leaders need to take a paternalistic approach and treat employees as extended family member. In driving change, employees do want the boss to tell them what they exactly should do.
  • Plan for Change with Maximum Flexibility and Patience: It goes without saying that clear objectives and vision are a must but they need to be shaped in line with family council’s expectations. At a 2nd or 3rd generation family owned business, each sibling or cousin may have completely different opinions. It becomes your task as the leader to find common ground among family members first. All deadlines and timescales are fluid in Turkey. It is generally OK if they are not met. One must not get frustrated with evergreen objectives and time priorities.
  • Connect with People, With A Distance: The Boss needs to be visible at all times but with a distance. Turks are emotional, touchy and feely. They need to see you in field, among them as one of them as often as you can afford it.
  • Motivate Like A Father, Win Hearts Before Minds: Seeking consensus is a perceived weakness in a leader. Having a small team of carefully selected external advisors helps. Lonely at the top saying does very much apply here. As a leader you need to keep your distance to be the boss so I appointed a general manager with high affiliative motive build employee loyalty. It worked.
  • Manage External Ecosystem: External conditions can be rapid and detrimental to your transformation efforts if you are not in synch with your outside stakeholders or are not proactively managing each and every one of them delicately. Regulators in your industry, politicians in Ankara, media, unions and municipalities can make or break your transformation agenda.

Transforming a company, a culture in a Culture of Change may sound crazy but it does pay off in the end with enough creativity, flexibility, patience and persistance.

Turkey: A Culture of Change

Turkey is without doubt one of the world’s rising star economies of the last decade, thanks to largely Mr. Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Given last ten years’ overwhelming and rapid structural changes, we can call Turkey – a Culture of Change. A young country with 78 million people, half of which are younger than 29 years of age.

One of Turkey’s leading business associations, TUSIAD has published a great report on Turkey. I trust you will find the report “Turkey: A Culture of Change” very insightful.

Private Equity Firms Eye Turkish Department Store Chain YKM

Turkish retail sector continues to attract interest from private equity firms. YKM which is Turkey’s first department stores brand from 20 years ago has been struggling to compete and fund its domestic expansion. The firms manages 38 owned stores and 24 franchises in Istanbul and Anatolia. 

I hear that Carlyle and Turkven a local PE shop are currently bidding for a stake in Istanbul-based department store chain YKM. They are joined by another Turkish private equity group Is Venture Capital and California-based real estate investor Colony Capital in the sale process, the two of which have partnered for the 63% stake.

Carlyle has teamed up with Turkish private equity investor Esas Holding for YFM, which is currently owned and operated by Turkey’s Agrali and Tan families.Turkey has seen a wave of private equity interest in recent years, as firms seek to capitalize on the emerging opportunities on offer.

Global private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management recently partnered with Turkish bank Garanti Securities to invest up to $1billion in buy-out deals in the country.

However, the deal suggests existing players may be having tough time generating prospects for deals given there appears to be at least 5 financial investors involved with a transaction of a small department chain with 62 stores. YKM has been for sale for at least 3 years and this may not close. However, the next deal for dealmaker may take even longer.

Do’s and Dont’s of Private Equity Dealmaking in Turkey

Earlier this week, I have had a first-hand experience of Turkey’s growing“ center of gravity” among financial investors at a PE-focused event “Capital Impact 2011” organized by FT in London. I was the only senior advisor from Turkey that FT Business has invited to participate.

Some of the reasons for investors’s excitement include:

 Turkey will be a trillion dollar economy by 2015, one of top ten in the world.

 From 2011 to 2013, the country’s privatization program will amount to about $50 billion, embracing energy, banking, transportation, and telecom sectors.

 The government is making plans to invest $100 billionin energy infrastructure over the next 20 years.

 Sabanci Holding, my former company is only one of thetwo Turkish companies to make it to Boston Consulting Group’s list of Top 100 Global Challengers

China has become China by consistently growing the fastest in the world.However, unlike China, Turkey will prove to transform into a stable growth democracy with better demographics and sustainable economy.

Building on all the excitement and growing interest, I’ve advised everyone to focus on six critical success factors:

1. Patience: Need to be even more patient in Turkey. “Patient capital” will win in the end. Start with basics, explain what private equity is.

2. Value-Added: Know exactly what you will bring to the candidates – capital alone does not cut it anymore. Help them become “pretty” – build strong governance, enable IFRS reporting, fight bribery & corruption etc.

3. Flexibility & Creativity: Take a flexible and innovative approach to sourcing deals. Build and offer a local “multi-asset” strategy. Don’t always insist on majority or a minimum check size. Sometimes you need to invest small to win big. Formulate creative deals.

4. Empathy: Be emphatetic to the local business community. First-generation business owners are in love with their firm more so than own children. What has gotten you successful globally may not get you too far inTurkey.

5. Turkey is not just Istanbul. Can you count the top 10 cities that will deliver the biggest deals in the next five years? Which ones have you visited?

6. Local Feet-on-the-Ground: Recruit local teams with ties to the community. You can’t cover it from abroad with sustainability and credibility.

Alcohol, Billion Dollar Dealmaking and Muslim Turkey

Two major deals by alcoholic drink giants made some of the highest profile deals in Turkey, a country predominantly muslim with a stable, mature, western democracy. At the end of February, Diageo’s acquisition of Turkey’s Mey Içki for $2.1 billion was not a real surprise, as nascent talks were first reported back in December last year. But SABMiller’s play Wednesday morning for its Turkish adventure was not so well tracked. Still, the rationale is the same and that rationale is compelling—access to booming economies and fast-growing markets without paying for anyhting.

According to Wall-Street Journal, the London-based global brewing giant, maker of Grolsch, Peroni Nastro Azzuro and Miller Lite, announced a strategic alliance with Turkish peer Anadolu Efes, allowing the two companies to push further into Turkey, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East.
It is understood that Anadolu Efes was also weighing up striking a partnership with rival Heineken as a platform for reciprocal growth in Russia, but in the end plumped for SABMiller as the advantages fit better with the brewer’s ambitions.

Taking a 24% stake in Anadolu Efes, SABMiller will transfer its Russian and Ukrainian beer businesses, with an equity and debt value of $1.9 billion, to the Turkish company in return. The Anadolu Group will control 42.8% of Anadolu Efes’s enlarged share capital.

The deal will allow Anadolu Efes to leverage SABMiller’s logistical expertise to distribute its portfolio of brands across the region, while SAB can in turn use the Turkish group’s dominance in the local markets to grow its international brands.

Anadolu Efes will have an 89% share of the Turkish beer market and occupy a number two market position in value terms in Russia, with a valuable portfolio of brands across key market segments. Turkey is one of the world’s high growth economies with a population of 74 million people, while the company’s products overall reach more than 600 million consumers across the region.

It has also leading market positions in the growth beer markets of Kazakhstan, Moldova and Georgia. As ever, the commercial benefits are key. The companies say the transaction is expected to be earnings per share enhancing for both groups in the first full year following completion, which is expected at the end of the year.