Biraz gec oldu ama gecenlerde Financial Times'da cikan yaziyi sizle paylasmak istedim..
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Galatasaray dispute on shareholder rights deepens
By Vincent Boland in Ankara
Published: February 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 17 2007 02:00
When Galatasaray, one of Turkey's top football clubs, takes to the pitch for this weekend's game against Gaziantepspor, the result will echo with a wider audience than its hardcore fans.
Watching closely, though with little enthusiasm, will be several investors in Galatasaray's merchandising arm, which are locked in a dispute with the club's owner over minority shareholder rights It is a clash that threatens to be as fierce as any footballing rivalry.
These investors, including several London-based fund managers, object to a proposal by the club's unlisted parent company to merge the merchandising division, known as Galatasaray Sportif, with its footballing side. They claim that such a move, among other things, contradicts statements in the prospectus issued when they invested in the division that ring-fenced its revenues from those of the rest of the club.
Angelo Moskov, chief executive and partner at QVT Financial, a $5.5bn investment management firm that owns about $20m of Galatasaray Sportif stock, says: "It is very important that companies are held responsible for what their prospectuses say. There are basic principles of capital markets involved that need to be upheld."
Aziz Unan, a partner at Griffin Capital Management, which has more than €2bn ($2.6bn) under management and also owns a stake in Galatasaray Sportif, says Turkey's market watchdog, the Capital Markets Board, "must ensure that minority shareholders are given a fair chance to exit if they wish before the merger takes place". QVT outlined its concerns this week in an eight-page letter to the CMB seen by the Financial Times. The firm, and other shareholders, want the watchdog either to block the merger or to order the parent company to buy them out at the price the stock traded at before the merger was proposed last summer, which is at least 50 per cent higher than its current share price.
QVT's letter says the CMB's response to the Galatasaray merger proposal "is a crucial test to verify [the Turkish] markets' reliability in the eye of international investors".
Along with Fenerbahce, Galatasaray is one of Turkey's two footballing giants in a country where the game is immensely popular and politically powerful. The club won the league championship last season, giving it a place in this year's Champions League.
The merchandising division controls the revenues the club receives from television rights and the sale of club products. Omer Kokner, chief executive of Galatasaray Sportif, said he did not wish to comment.
Turan Erol, acting chairman of the CMB, says the board is investigating the merger proposal closely. But if Galatasaray is not breaking any laws in pursuing the merger, he says, there may be nothing the CMB can do to stop it. "This may not be a straightforward case of investor protection because Galatasaray may have the legal right to do what it is proposing," Mr Erol says.
"If there is a legal confrontation between the merger and investor protection, it is difficult to say what would happen. It's a new issue for the CMB."
Mr Moskov, Mr Unan and others say one of their concerns is that the CMB will see the dispute simply as a conflict of interest between the club and the shareholders. They argue that there are fundamental principles of corporate governance and transparent capital markets involved and that the Galatasaray case poses a test of the CMB's willingness to stand up for minority shareholder rights.
Source:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/55b1eca4-be2b-1 ... e2340.html