Turkey's Aksa Natural Gas Distribution Co., with a share of one third of the country's gas distribution volume, has plans to go public at the end of 2018 or beginning of 2019 for 30 percent of its shares valued at $750 million, head of the company said on Friday.
Yasar Arslan, CEO of Aksa Natural Gas Distribution Co., told Anadolu Agency that they have already started to work on the company's initial public offering (IPO) and reminded that no company has gone public yet in the gas distribution sector.
The company is responsible for gas distribution in 27 Turkish cities out of 78 which have access to natural gas distribution network and the remaining three will also gain access within two years.
He said that taking the future earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (ebitda) into consideration, the valuation of the company will be around $2.5 billion.
'Thus, 30 percent of the shares correspond to $750 million. For now, we plan to go public at the end of 2018 or 2019,' Arslan said.
He explained that Baskent Gas which is operating in Turkey's capital, Ankara and IGDAS in İstanbul had been working on public offerings for a while but they had not concluded anything yet.
'We will probably manage to finalize our plan before they do. We see that there is interest in such companies from both local and international funds. They want to have shares from public companies,' Arslan said.
- Company eyes gas distribution abroad
The company has also plans to invest in foreign countries to operate in gas distribution sector, he said.
'We are looking for opportunities in Indonesia despite some challenges. We have been interested in gas distribution in Macedonia for a long time. A tender will probably be realized towards the end of 2018 and in case we win, we will invest £250 million in the country for gas distribution and related works,' Arslan explained.
He added that in five years, they plan to be more active abroad, especially in Turkic Republics, and African countries that have investment-friendly regulations and Far-East countries.
- 2.6 billion Turkish lira investment in Turkey
The CEO said that the company invested in national gas distribution business over 450 million Turkish liras in 2017.
'Our investment volume in the coming four years will be 2.6 billion Turkish liras which correspond to 42 percent of total investments in the sector,' he said.
The whole sector's total investment in gas distribution is 6.2 billion Turkish liras in the same period.
Arslan stated that the number of Aksa subscribers will reach 3.7 million in 2021 from current 2.5 million.
The total number of subscribers in Turkey in 2021 is calculated to reach 17 million, currently 13.3 million.
By Nuran Erkul Kaya
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr