Turkey Times it Right with Big Dollar Benchmark Bond Issue

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If international investors are uneasy about the geopolitical situation in Turkey, they did not show it when the government launched a large dollar benchmark bond issue in early March.By Philip Moore

价格为4.875％的优惠券，其等于美国国债的316个基点，10年10亿美元的问题产生了近15亿美元的总需求，允许债券分布在一系列多样化的投资者范围内。刚刚在美国投资者举办的三分之一债券，英国销售的22％，土耳其20％。

“土耳其债务管理局一直非常明智地对其在国际资本市场上的发行量非常明显，”伦敦生产州的Pinebridge Investments高级主权投资组合经理Anders Foergemann说。“当投资者在侧线上有足够的现金以及对土耳其的情绪正在改善时，它擅长识别时间。”

For Turkey, maintaining consistent and competitively-priced access to the international capital market is essential, given its need to plug the gap created by its current account deficit. Turkey’s persistent current account deficits have been a product of its low savings rate of about 15 percent of GDP, twinned with its historical trade imbalance, driven chiefly by imported energy. Some economists have argued that the deficit is a healthy indication of buoyant consumer spending in a country where 50 percent of the population is under the age of 29. That may be. But the deficit has also fuelled the build-up of an external debt pile which Fitch describes as “very large” compared to the country’s peers at 38.4 percent of GDP at the end of 2015.

Given that about a third of this debt is denominated in US dollars, Turkey’s vulnerability has been exacerbated by the weakness of the Turkish lire and the threat of rising US interest rates. “Although we have started to see an improvement in the current account deficit, the government has built up a large stock of foreign currency liabilities, which is where my main concern lies with Turkey as a credit going forward,” says Faergemann at Pinebridge.

The good news, according to Turkish government statistics, is that the current account deficit continued its downward trajectory last year, falling from 5.8 percent of GDP in 2014 to 4.4 percent in 2015. The government expects this decline to continue, reaching 3.9 percent in 2016, 3.7 percent in 2017 and 3.5 percent in 2018.

The less-positive news for Turkey is that the recent trend in the current account deficit has been driven almost entirely by the collapse in the oil price, which on the surface is a blessing for an economy which is dependent on imported energy. As the IMF comments in its most recent update, “The smaller current account deficit is welcome, but external imbalances persist. Much of the improvement can be traced to lower oil prices, and the non-energy balance has barely changed.”

Depressed oil prices are not universally good news for Turkey, as a recent analysis published by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) explains: “What low energy prices give in terms of a lower import bill, they at least partly take away via declines in exports (including tourism exports) to key commodity-producing trade partners, and lower capital inflows via the financial account.” S&P points out that tourism contributes about 12 percent of Turkish GDP, and that Russia is the second largest source of visitor arrivals (behind Germany). With Russian tourism hit by a combination of sanctions, the weak ruble and deteriorating relations between Moscow and Ankara, declining visitor numbers could generate a drag on Turkey’s growth and balance of payments.

传统上是土耳其经济的另一个脆弱性的通货膨胀，仍然是经济学家和投资者的关注。The inflation rate for February 2016 of 8.8 percent was a very far cry from the annual average of more than 70 percent posted between 1995 and 2001. But it remains well above the central bank’s target of 5 percent, with the sharp fall in the Turkish lira and the introduction of populist measures such as last year’s 30 percent hike in the minimum wage both putting upward pressure on the CPI.

Nevertheless, in spite of elevated geopolitical risks, the growth outlook for Turkey remains upbeat, with continued expansion of the economy underpinned by robust consumer demand. The government’s medium-term plan sees the economy expanding by 4.5 percent in 2016 and by 5 percent in both 2017 and 2018, with unemployment declining over the same period from 10.2 percent to 9.6 percent.

这一令人鼓舞的前景可以为土耳其股票市场提供一些喘息的呼吸，这是去年遭到禁止的新兴市场宇宙中最糟糕的表现之一，以当地货币税率下降了14.1％，但美元的价格为31.2％。“土耳其是最便宜的新兴市场之一，比2016年盈利约为9次的P / E比率，与整体新兴市场约有12次，”斯德哥尔摩东部首都的投资组合经理福雷阿克卡马克说。“在这些层面，鉴于经济的恢复力，我们在土耳其股票市场内看到了一些非常有吸引力的价值口袋，这在尽管政治不确定性，区域不稳定和对美国货币政策的担忧继续表现不佳。”

投资者表示，欠发达的银行业，特别是仍然具有吸引力的增长前景。根据阿克银行的说法，土耳其人口78米，约48米的人口仍然是不押或半银行的。总贷款等同于GDP的71％，家庭和抵押债务与GDP 22％和7％的比例。要将这些数字纳入一些国际视角，即使在金融危机以来加速折射率后，2015年底，家庭债务仍占美国国内生产总值的80％。

对此背景的小奇迹，Akbank在零售银行业务中看到了相当大的增长潜力，2016-2018投影复合年增长率（CAGR），占土耳其银行系统的贷款和存款的14％至16％。Akbank本身预测它将长大于行业，其贷款和存款每次在同一时期的CAGR中推广16％至18％。符合此扩展，Akbank估计，零售银行的份额将从2015年银行收入的42％上升至2016年的45％。

Among Turkey’s other leading banks, Halkbank is also optimistic about its prospects for continued growth in the domestic banking market. It plans to open 40 new branches in 2016, and is projecting increases in assets and loans in 2016, much of which will be driven by its strength in the market for lending to SMEs, which Halkbank describes as the “backbone” of the Turkish economy.

Equity investors say that the strong growth outlook for the Turkish financial services sector is not reflected in the valuations of the leading banks. “Banks have been facing a number of regulatory and economic headwinds recently, which have widened the discount at which Turkish banks are trading, both to their emerging market peers and to domestic non-bank sectors,” says Akcakmak at East Capital. “We think some of these headwinds may turn into tailwinds this year, with Turkish banks expected to post earnings growth of 15 percent to 20 percent and return on equity (ROE) ratios projected to improve from 11 percent-12 percent to 13 percent-14 percent over the short term.” With banks trading on undemanding multiples of about 6.7 times 2016 earnings, and on price/book value ratios of 0.8, Akcakmak sees compelling value in the Turkish banking sector.