Billionaire Mikhail Fridman Seeks Boardroom Clearout at Turkcell

(Bloomberg) -- Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s investment vehicle LetterOne has called for the dismissal of four board members at Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS, as it pushes for a governance overhaul at Turkey’s largest wireless carrier. 

LetterOne, which owns 19.8% of Turkcell, said in a statement Tuesday that replacing Afif Demirkiran, Nail Olpak, Huseyin Arslan and Julian Horn-Smith was an important step in improving Turkcell’s governance to attract international investors. It has proposed four unaffiliated directors as replacements, according to the statement.

“We want the company to be a beacon for Turkey in the international financial markets,” LetterOne Managing Director Ben Babcock said in an interview.

In November, LetterOne said 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. Babcock said he expected broad shareholder support for these resolutions at the company’s next annual general meeting, a date for which has not yet been set.

“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.

Turkcell said previously that it welcomed feedback from its investors but disagreed with LetterOne. A representative for Turkcell declined to comment Tuesday.

LetterOne worked with recruitment firm Korn Ferry to identify replacements for the four board members, it said. The investment firm is Turkcell’s second-largest investor after Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund.

Shares in Turkcell have risen 20% in Istanbul trading over the last 12 months, giving it a market value of about 43 billion Turkish lira ($3.2 billion).

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