In the long term, the banking crisis will probably be
remembered as the beginning of the period when market dominance
started passing to foreign banks. The Turkish banking sale season
has opened and there are many bargains. "Compared with
price-to-asset valuations of around 50% to 60% a year ago, bank
valuations have now declined to 15% to 20% of assets," says Credit
Suisse First Boston's head Turkish analyst, Afa Boran.
"We are entering a phase of foreign bank domination," says Burhan
Karacam, chairman of Kocbank, which belongs to one of Turkey's
biggest privately-owned industrial conglomerates. "Turkish banks
need to recapitalize but have not got the resources to do so. They
must therefore find joint-venture partners. Small and medium-size
banks will disappear. There will be just an handful of big banks
and a few speciality banks left."
HSBC is negotiating to buy Demirbank from banking authority BDDK.
BDDK has...
