Turkey Wealth Fund consolidates public insurance firms

The Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF) acquired all shares of public insurance companies for 6.54 billion Turkish liras ($936.7 million) to consolidate them under a single roof, the fund said late on April 22.  

The consolidation was a project of the Treasury and Finance Ministry which was announced in December to raise the country's domestic savings rate and grow the non-banking financial services sector, it noted in a press release.

As part of the project, the fund bought shares of Güneş Sigorta, Halk Sigorta, Ziraat Sigorta, Vakıf Emeklilik ve Hayat, Halk Hayat ve Emeklilik and Ziraat Hayat ve Emeklilik.

"As the Turkey Wealth Fund, we highly prioritize this project and consider it to be a milestone on our roadmap in providing capital to Turkey's strategic investments and supporting the deepening of financial markets," it said.

The Turkey Wealth Fund, founded in 2016, holds all or part of the shares of several Turkish companies including flag carrier Turkish Airlines, telecommunications giant Turk Telekom, state lenders Ziraat Bankasi and Halkbank, oil company Turkish Petroleum and stock market Borsa Istanbul.

Turkey's sovereign wealth fund is ranked the 14th largest among the world's top 15 wealth funds, according to the U.S.-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute.