Sabancı exits food retail, selling stakes in DiaSA, CarrefourSA

Spanish supermarket group Dia, which owns a 60 percent stake in DiaSA, said April 19 that it had agreed to sell its Turkish business to Yıldız Holding and one of its subsidiaries, retailer Şok Marketler. The sale will involve all the stakes of the company, including the 40 percent of shares owned by Sabancı Holding. Yıldız will pay 136.5 million euros ($179 million) for the whole business. DiaSA has more than 1,200 branches in Turkey. The sources said Sabancı was also making progress in talks with French group Carrefour on the sale of its stake in their CarrefourSA joint venture. Currently a 52.2 percent share of the joint venture is owned by Carrefour and 33.8 percent is owned by Sabancı Holding. A total 2.2 percent of shares in CarrefourSA are traded on the Istanbul bourse. The partners have been struggling with an unsolved dispute which led Sabancı to give an ultimatum to its partner in late March to come up with a solution to the uncertainties over their joint company CarrefourSA, saying it would otherwise take legal action. Sabancı has been unsatisfied with Carrefour's operations in Turkey over the last five years. Carrefour's global value decreased from 30 billion euros to 15 billion euros with a 50 percent loss in the last five years. "We will defend our rights against [Carrefour's] underperformance and violations. We will take necessary steps to protect our legal rights," said senior Sabancı official Haluk Dinçer.