Coşkun Ulusoy the chairman of Turaaa’s powerful military pension fund suggests an option to navigate through the global credit crunch: Merging state-owned giants Halkbank Vakıfbank and Ziraat Bank with İşbank. ‘Nothing is impossible if there is political will’ he says

EREĞLİ Zonguldak - Turkish Daily News


A radical restructuring of Turaaa's main state banks into an internationally competitive “super bank” was proposed over the weekend by the chairman of Turaaa's military pension fund himself the one-time chief at two state-owned banks.
The idea put forth by Oyak Chairman S. Coşkun Ulusoy is to merge state-owned Halkbank Ziraat Bank and Vakıfbank with the semi-public İşbank.
İşbank already operates as a private bank but was founded with charitable donations collected during Turaaa's independence war and remains partially owned by the opposition Republican People's Party or CHP.
Ulusoy's surprise proposal came during a briefing for the press on the fund's 2007 financial results which included the sale of Oyakbank to Dutch ING Bank for $2.7 billion a sale that has created a warchest Ulusoy said will be used for major acquisitions in the upcoming year. Oyak closed out the year with operating profits of YTL 2.7 billion a record that outperformed most Turkish corporations and enabled the fund to increase benefits paid to retirees by 54 percent.
The results were shared with reporters at a meeting in the Black Sea city of Ereğli home to Oyak's sprawling steel subsidiary Erdemir.
“This year was one of crowning achievement for Oyak” Ulusoy said of the results.
On the idea of a “super bank” for Turaaa Ulusoy told reporters he has no professional standing to make such a suggestion but was doing so “only as a citizen with the right to voice his opinion.” The fact Ulusoy once headed both Halkbank and Ziraat however made the comment more than just a casual private opinion.

Halkbank privatization:
The government has repeatedly promised to privatize Halkbank probably through a public stock offering but the project has dragged without progress for a number of years. Occasional calls to rid state books of Ziraat are also made but no formal plans currently exist to do so as the international credit crunch takes its toll on global companies.
Which is why the entire issue should be revisited Ulusoy said. Rather than keep a number of weak banks afloat for political reasons a better strategy would be to bundle the assets into a single institution that would have the strength to truly serve Turaaa's national interests.
“Would it be difficult? Yes it would” Ulusoy said. “But nothing is impossible if there is political will and such an undertaking would indeed be possible.”
Oyak with more than 60 subsidiary companies that range from the automaker Renault Mais to the recently acquired steel works Erdemir is a unique conglomerate founded as the military pension fund in the early 1960s. It is often compared to such powerhouse international investors as CalPers the public employee fund of the U.S. state of California. But it also is frequently compared to such international private equity funds as the Carlyle Group as it engages actively in the management of its investments.
Since the sale of Oyakbank many reports have speculated as to what Ulusoy will do with the fund's new investment clout. He did little to quiet that speculation over the weekend saying the fund is examining sectors from energy to mining to agriculture both in Turaaa and abroad. His only specifics were to strongly hint the company will make an investment in the logistics or transport sector to capitalize on the fact that it manages both the Black Sea port of Ereğli as well as the one in Mediterranean city of İskenderun the site of the second steelworks İsdemir.