Deals
Dubai's Biggest Bank Bets $3.2 Billion on Turkey's Wild Ride
- Turkey’s banks face plunging lira and debt restructurings
- Gulf lenders are expanding overseas amid limited home markets
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By most accounts, Dubai’s biggest bank got a good deal when it agreed to buy Turkey’s Denizbank AS for $3.2 billion. The question is whether that’s enough to make up for entering a market under pressure from all sides.
Emirates NBD PJSC is buying the lender from Russia’s Sberbank at a time when the country is struggling with a plunging currency, a wave of debt restructurings, looming elections and political meddling in the finance industry. The purchase is both Turkey’s largest M&A deal since 2012 and the Dubai bank’s biggest acquisition.