On top of the market
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| Mustafa Akgun |
Although it was founded in 2002, Pragma has become a force to be reckoned with in Turkish corporate finance in the past few years. According to Merger Market data, since January 2008 it has been the leading M&A adviser in Turkey by number of completed transactions. And in the past year its number of employees has increased from 20 to 30. Key to its success is that its seven managing directors have sectoral focuses and actually execute the mandates that they win. "None of our competitors has the luxury of having MDs focus on just one or two sectors," says Mustafa Akgun, one of the seven MDs in the firm. "Having this local presence and knowledge is important as clients look at the team to see who is actually going to work on their deal."
Attracting quality bankers has been crucial to winning client mandates. One of the latest to join is Kerim Kotan, who joined in July 2010 from Standard Unlu, the Turkish investment banking business of Standard Bank of South Africa.