March 6, 2015 | Quote

Turkey’s Wall Street is in ‘Panic Mode’


On Thursday Citigroup announced that it would pull up and leave Turkey's second largest bank, selling its almost 10% stake Akbank TAS at an $800 million loss.

That tells you something about how quickly the bank wanted to leave. It had held the investment for 7 years.

“It has been a rough year or two for Turkey’s financial sector,” Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former counterterrorism analyst for the US Treasury Department, told Business Insider in an email. “This explains why Davutoglu made a surprise visit to New York. He was trying to placate nervous bankers and investors. He didn’t even tell the State Department he was coming. The Turks appear to be in panic mode.”

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Issues:

Turkey