Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentina (BBVA) on the purchase of 24.9% of Turkey’s leading bank, Turkiye Garanti Bankasi AS, for €4.2 billion ($5.9 billion).
“We are delighted to be advising BBVA on this deal, which is reported to be the biggest European M&A transaction to date this year and the largest Turkish private sector M&A transaction ever,” said Asli Basgoz, White & Case partner who led the deal.
BBVA has agreed to buy 18.6% of Garanti from General Electric Co. and 6.3% from Turkey’s Dogus Holding. Garanti is one of Turkey’s largest private sector banks, with 837 branches and 9.5 million clients.
White & Case has had offices in Turkey since 1985 and has worked for Turkish clients since 1978. Through its two offices in Istanbul and Ankara, the Firm represents key market players, including investors, lenders, government entities and others in M&A and joint ventures, capital markets, private equity, privatization, infrastructure and project finance and banking transactions in Turkey and in the region. White & Case has advised on many transactions that were the largest and most complex of their kind, including the largest ever privatization, largest private equity transaction, and largest foreign investments in many sectors, including the Turkish banking, energy and pharmaceutical industries. The Firm also advised on the first two high yield bond offerings by Turkish issuers, including, most recently, a US $200m bond for one of Turkey’s leading international construction, energy and infrastructure firms, Yüksel İnşaat A.Ş.
White & Case Istanbul partner Asli Basgoz and Meltem Akol, of Akol Law Offices and White & Case, led the team. They were assisted by partner Lucian Bondoc and associates Procop Buruiană and Dan Minoiu (Bucharest); partners Mehtap Yildirim, Zeynep Cakmak, local partner Ahmet Dogan and associate Cem Cagatay Orak (Cakmak Law Offices, Ankara); partner Laura Sizemore and associate Emre Edmund Ozer (Istanbul) and associates Sezgin Bas, Eren Kursun, Yalin Akmenek, Emre Ozsar, Zeynep Betil, Ceren Sen, Gupse Unlucetinkaya, Ali Uzun and Onur Yuksel (Akol Law Offices, Istanbul); partners Greg Stonefield and Allan Taylor (London), partner Maya Melnikas and associates Anna Maximenko and Ksenia Pozdnyakova (Moscow) and partner Mark Powell and associate Grant McKelvey (Brussels).
