Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) has opened its offshore International Market with the launch of trading in Turkish Eurobonds.
The International Market will operate in a free zone within the 24,500 square metre exchange, which is the most modern in Europe, and is designed to become a platform where companies from central Europe, the Middle East and central Asia can offer their shares to international investors.
In the words of Tuncay Artun, ISE chairman and CEO, it represents Istanbul's hopes of becoming the most important securities market between London and Singapore by the early years of the 21st century.
The ISE has chosen Turkish Eurobonds for the offshore market's first activity in an attempt to put it quickly on the map. There is already an active, but not very liquid, market in Turkish Eurobonds of which $13 billion worth have been issued by the Turkish treasury since 1988.
Most of the activity is concentrated in London, where Turkish Eurobonds are sold over the counter by such market-makers as Chase, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS, which have been among the principal lead managers of Turkish issues.