Bezen & Partners Advises EBRD in Subscription for a Bond Issuance

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (“EBRD”) is investing in many transactions around Turkey in order to strengthen the country’s capital markets. With this transaction in particular the bank is investing in Turkey’s longest tenor corporate bond. EBRD has invested TRY70 million (EUR21 million) in YDA İnşaat Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş.’s (“YDA”) four year bond issuance. The senior unsecured local currency bond is part of a TRY 250 million (EUR74 million) issuance formed of two tranches of equal sizes, with maturities of two and four years respectively and was the first issuance under YDA’s TRY 500 million (EUR 148 million) bond programme. The Turkish industrial conglomerate YDA is raising the bond with the backing of the EBRD to finance a state-of-the-art hospital in the central Anatolian city of Konya, as well as to refinance part of its short-term debt. Overall, the bank’s participation in this transaction is expected to assist in increasing the average tenor of bond issuances in the corporate bond market while also attracting a wider group of international investors to Turkey. Acting as Turkish legal counsel to EBRD and advising them on their investment in the bond issuance was Bezen & Partners. The team was led by Senior Partner Yeşim Bezen, Partner Banu Aslan and Associate Zeynep Özkan.