| Headline: Banks must roll over or die Source: Euromoney Date: April 2001 Turkish banks will have to roll over $6 billion in syndicated debt this year, according to a Turkish treasury document made available to Euromoney. The market consensus is that first-tier banks, such as Akbank, Garanti, Is Bank and Yap¦ Kredi, will be able to roll over, albeit at higher interest rates, but life will not be so easy for medium-size and smaller banks. “We have drawn up a list of banks and companies we believe will survive the crisis and we will do business just with them,” says a western banker whose institution is one of the top five lenders to Turkey. “We will not lend to others and neither, I believe, will any of our peers. This will speed up consolidation in the banking sector because loans make up a large part of the liability base.” In a sign of how tight the situation for Turkey is, his bank has decided that all loans to the country must be cleared by the bank’s board. For now, directors are not being asked to make any decisions. “At this time the board is not clearing any loans because the committee is not referring anything to it and I am referring nothing to the committee,” he said. |