Turkey’s sovereign wealth fund has remained largely inactive in the three years since its creation, though it was launched with high expectations and handed over major public assets. Borrowing has been the fund’s only noteworthy activity thus far in what has amounted to an effort to rescue big construction companies amid the country’s economic crisis.
Last week, the fund announced it was taking over a stake worth nearly 1.7 billion Turkish liras (some $300 million) in the partially built Istanbul Finance Center, a sprawling project where construction has stalled amid financial snags. The move, which came shortly after the fund secured a treasury-guaranteed loan of 1 billion euros from foreign lenders, appears to justify predictions outlined in an Al-Monitor article more than two years ago.
