Moody’s Maintains Turkcell’s Investment Grade Rating

Moody’s Investor Service has announced that it has confirmed the ratings of Turkcell (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL) at Baa3 level, changing the outlook to "stable” from "rating under review.” With this ratings confirmation, Turkcell protects its investment grade rating at Moody’s.

With this announcement, Turkcell also maintains its three investment grade ratings from the top credit rating agencies. In July and August, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch had also confirmed Turkcell’s ratings at investment grade level. Turkcell had obtained three investment grade ratings from the three credit-rating agencies over the summer of 2015, becoming the first Turkish company to do so.

Very strong financial and liquidity profile, solid fundamentals of business

In its press release, Moody’s has drawn attention to Turkcell’s "very strong financial and liquidity profile" as well as the fundamental strengths of its business. In its rating rationale, Moody’s highlighted

• "Turkcell’s leadership in Turkish mobile telephony market” which the Agency "expects will strengthen further following the award of 47% of total frequencies available as part of the 4.5G spectrum auction"
• The "strong fundamentals of the mobile sector in Turkey, driven by Turkey’s young population and low smartphone penetration relative to other European peers"
• Turkcell’s "conservative financial policies that the company continues to adhere to” with a "very low leverage despite the 4.5G license” and a "target of a net debt/EBITDA in the range of 1.0x-1.5x"
• Turkcell’s "ability to tap the debt capital markets and its strong relationships with international banks."

In its press release, Moody’s has reminded that Turkcell had issued a 10-year $500 million bond in October 2015. The agency also stated that "Turkcell’s liquidity profile is very strong. The company has high cash balances of TRY3.8 billion (78% of which in FX) and has a committed line of Euro750 million.”

Turkcell had also signed loan agreements worth 2.4 million USD with a number of international banks in 2015. In June and July this year, the company took a number of further measures for liquidity, hedging its currency risk.

ABOUT TURKCELL: Turkcell is a converged telecommunication and technology services provider, founded and headquartered in Turkey. It serves its customers with voice, data, TV and value-added consumer and enterprise services on mobile and fixed networks. Turkcell launched LTE services in its home country on April 1st, 2016, employing LTE-Advanced and 3 carrier aggregation technologies in 81 cities. In 2G and 3G, Turkcell’s population coverage is at 99.80% and 95.14%, respectively, as of June 2016. It offers up to 1 Gbps fiber internet speed with its FTTH services. Turkcell Group companies serve 66.5 million subscribers in 9 countries – Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Northern Cyprus, Germany, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Moldova – as of June 30, 2016. Turkcell Group reported a TRY3.4 billion revenue with total assets of TRY28.6 billion as of June 30, 2016. It has been listed on the NYSE and the BIST since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey. Read more at www.turkcell.com.tr

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