Value Masters Group  Türkiye Desk Note No. 3  /  September 2026

The asset the state kept is back on the table.

On 5 September 2026 Türkiye placed two Bosphorus bridges and eight motorways into privatisation for thirty years — no transfer of ownership, revenue partnership among the permitted methods. We put that same structure in front of the same institutions in 2004, and one of those files reached signature.

Our letter to the Privatisation Administration, 19 October 2004
“…an Asset Management Company that would purchase a 20% interest in each relevant asset, with the Turkish government retaining ownership in the remaining 80%.”

Written for Farallon, Perry Capital and Hellman & Friedman. First asset on the list: toll roads and bridges. Read the letter

Presidential Decision 11750, 5 September 2026
“Transfer of operating rights, lease, rights in rem short of ownership, revenue partnership model — with no transfer of ownership.”

Two bridges, eight motorways, two ring roads. Thirty years, to be completed by 31 December 2031, run by the same Privatisation Administration.

$600m
toll revenue in 2025 — three times the 2004 base
30 years
concession term, title stays with the state
$5–8bn
where the concession price lands, by discount rate
TRY 12.7tn
sovereign fund assets behind the next tickets

One asset opens the door. Three lanes keep it open.

The bridges are the first ticket, not the whole desk. Behind them sits the inventory of a cycle Türkiye has now run three times: privatise, leverage, distress, buy back, privatise again.

Bridges and motorways

for Brookfield Infrastructure

Operating rights or revenue partnership on a $600m annual revenue base. The 2013 tender drew $5.72bn for 25 years and was cancelled as insufficient. The term is now 30 years and the revenue has tripled.

The sovereign fund's portfolio

for Oaktree

TRY 12.7 trillion of assets, TRY 2 trillion of equity, 32 companies, 188,631 employees — Türk Telekom, Turkish Airlines, Borsa İstanbul, Eti Maden. The fund holds the inventory of the cycle without an operator to work it.

Corporate credit and stranded funds

for Oaktree

Share-pledged rescue lending to solvent groups caught on currency, and secondaries in 2007–2014 vintage Türkiye funds that have had no exit in a decade.

We are not new to either of these tables.

In the autumn of 2004 the same group put the same structure to the Privatisation Administration and to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund; the second one was signed. Every document opens as a reading page in English and Turkish, with the original scan attached.

19 Oct 2004
Letter to the Privatisation Administration An 80/20 asset management company across the whole privatisation portfolio, with an incentive fee above a negotiated baseline. Toll roads and bridges head the list.
19 Oct 2004
Indication of interest to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund About $4bn face of corporate non-performing loans at ten cents on the dollar, with 15% and 30% of distributions above $1bn and $1.5bn returning to the state.
22 Dec 2004
Memorandum of Understanding, signed with the Fund Ahmet Ertürk for the Fund, Richard Perry and Alp Erçil for Perry Capital, William F. Duhamel for Farallon. Six weeks of due diligence, exclusive negotiation, closing targeted for 31 March 2005.
2024
Türkiye Wealth Fund, integrated annual report The audited counterparty balance sheet behind Lane B: TRY 12.7 trillion of assets, TRY 2 trillion of equity, TRY 371.4bn of profit, 32 portfolio companies.
Mar 2026
Our brief to the Presidency on the sovereign fund The same argument made to Ankara: stop selling on the first hand, improve the assets and list them abroad while the state keeps 80%. The English edition reads it from the investor's side: what Ankara books as loss is the buyer's return.
5 Sep 2026
Presidential Decision No. 11750 — bridges and motorways Thirty years, no transfer of ownership, revenue partnership among the methods, completion by 31 December 2031. The Privatisation Administration is the executing authority — the same one we wrote to in 2004.
1854–2026
From the Ottoman Empire to the Republic: paying debt with debt, and where it ends The Value Masters Academy report on Türkiye's public finances that the desk's macro reading rests on.