Turkey's Net Holding wins lottery licence with $2.76 bln bid (updated)

Net Holding

15/07/2014 16:59

(Adds details on rival bidders) 
    ANKARA, July 15 (Reuters) - A unit of Turkish tourism 
company Net Holding  NTHOL.IS  won a privatisation tender on 
Tuesday to operate the country's national lottery for 10 years 
with a bid of $2.76 billion. 
    The bid from Net Sans-Hitay must now be given final approval 
by Turkey's privatisation and competition boards as well as by a 
high court, the privatisation administration said. 
    It beat offers from two rival consortia: one composed of 
Czech investment groups KKCG and Emma Capital, and Italian 
gaming company GTECH SpA  GTCH.MI , the other Turkey's 
ERG-Ahlatci consortium. 
    Turkey attracted several billion dollars in privatisation 
revenues last year, driven by sell-offs in the energy sector, 
and is now trying to focus on more profitable sales after 
revenues in some tenders came in below expectations. 
    In 2009, Turkey scrapped a tender to privatise the national 
lottery as a whole after the two bidders failed to meet the $1.6 
billion minimum price, and later opted instead to sell licences 
for games operated by the lottery. 
     
 
 (Reporting by Ozge Ozbilgin; Writing by Dasha Afanasieva; 
Editing by Nick Tattersall) 
 ((nicholas.tattersall@thomsonreuters.com)(Reuters Messaging: 
nicholas.tattersall.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: TURKEY LOTTERY/NET