Ferit Sahenk, general manager at Dogus Holdings, suffered from unlucky timing the last time he tried to sell a stake in Garanti Bank to Italy's Banca Intesa. It was September 2001. The due diligence had been done twice over, all loose ends were tied. The only thing that remained for closing was the deal approval of Intesa's board.
When the board met it was three days after September 11. "Due to sudden and serious change in the international scenario," said a statement issued in Milan, "the conditions to proceed to examine the investment proposal in Garanti Bank no longer recur [sic]." The wording might have been a little cryptic but the meaning was unmistakable.
The deal was off. Garanti's shares were badly hit and market cap dropped like a stone to $621 million. David Edgerly, a US banker who was then working for an affiliate of Garanti, was in Croatia when he received a call from Sahenk. "It didn't happen but it will," he recalls Sahenk saying in Turkish.
The negotiations were put on ice, but contacts were maintained, not least because 80% of Intesa's Turkish exposure was with Garanti.