Russian billionaire, Mikhail Fridman’s investment company seeks dismissal of board members in Turkcell
Mikhail Fridman, Co-founder of Letter One, the billion-dollar international investment company, has called for the dismissal of four directors in Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, one of its investments as it pushes for governance overhaul at the company which is currently Turkey’s biggest wireless carrier.
Letter One which owns 19.8% of Turkcell, in a statement made by the company’s spokesperson stated that replacing four directors was an important step in improving Turkcell’s governance to attract international investors and in turn, has proposed four unaffiliated directors as replacements.
Ben Babcock, managing director of Letter One said they want the company to be a beacon for Turkey in the international financial markets and that they believe that Turkcell could deliver “substantially more” value and become a market-leading digital telecom company if it enacted changes including setting up a new board committee to review costs, asset monetization and capital allocation.
“We sought to engage constructively with the Turkcell board to address our legitimate concerns but the board has chosen not to engage with us,” Babcock said in Tuesday’s statement.
Letter One worked with recruitment firm, Korn Ferry to identify replacements for the four board members.
However, they’re being met with some resistance by Turkcell as the company stated that while they welcome feedback from their investors, they disagree with Letter One on the dismissal of directors.
Turkcell currently has a market value of about 43 billion Turkish lire ($3.2 billion).
