It was a flurry of sanctions on Russia at the highest level from all sides. Being left out of the SWIFT system, Central Bank of Russia being sanctioned and various other types of sanctions from all sides, excluding Russia from Europe & rest of the Western World.
Russian Ruble has collapsed in off-shore trading, while Russian officials have restricted the sale of Russian assets by non-residents and we don’t know when the Russian markets will be open for trading for FX or equities.
The heavy impact on Russian & Ukrainian economies is not good for Turkey from various angles, but foremost will be the increase in commodity prices from aluminum to wheat, from Brent to nickel, where Turkey uses as intermediate goods to manufacture. There might even be supply disruptions.
Turkey started 2022 with a January trade deficit of USD10bn, whereas for all of 2021 trade deficit of USD45bn. We are looking at a trade deficit of USD100bn, which means fragility for TRY in the coming months, as financing of the CA deficit will be harder than expected with lower/no tourism revenues from Russia & Ukraine, which made up almost 1/3 of arrivals in 2021. The overall macro fragility of Turkey’s economy has increased with this war & its consequence.
Company news:
*ARCLK TI> bought back 139K shares at an average price of TL53.94 on 25 Feb 2022. Since 02 July 2021, the total number of shares bought back reached 51.9mn at an average price of TL38.96.
*FROTO TI> proposed to pay 13.0 DPS/share from 2021 earnings, implying 5.5% dividend yield (ATA: 7.2%). <Neutral> This dividend implies 52% dividend pay-out ratio which is lower than our estimate of 80%. The dividend payment date is 24 March 2022. The company generally distribute dividend twice, one ordinary and one extraordinary, through the year depending on the company’s operations. Although this dividend seems lower than our estimate, this dividend might be the first tranche of dividends and the company may distribute the second tranche dividend during 2022.
*PETKM TI> 4Q21 Results: In-line with expectations...Petkim posted TL1,529mn net income in 4Q21, in-line with our estimate of TL1,520mn and consensus estimate of TL1,508mn. The company posted TL1,692mn EBITDA in 4Q21, slightly lower than our estimate of TL1,740mn and lower than consensus estimate of TL1,797mn. The company’s EBITDA/ton declined to US$217 in 4Q21 (ATA Est: US$237) from US$243 in 3Q21 due to higher feedstock prices. Please note that the company recorded US$13.4mn inventory gain in 4Q21 (3Q21: US$13.1mn). Petkim will hold a conference call today at 16.00 Istanbul time.
Weekly Agenda:
Feb 28: PETKM analyst meeting at 4 PM local time
Feb 28: DOAS 4Q21 results cons TL 496 mn ATA 1,041 mn
Feb 28: Jan Foreign Trade statistics
Feb 28: 4Q21 GDP
Mar 1: February Markit Manufacturing PMI
Mar 1: DOAS analyst meeting at 13:30 local time
Mar 1: THYAO 4Q21 results cons TL 2,394 mn ATA 2,391 mn
Mar 1: MGROS 4Q21 results cons TL -243 mn ATA -262 mn
Mar 1: VESBE 4Q21 results cons TL 190 mn
Mar 2: THYAO Analyst meeting at 2 PM local time
Mar 2: AKSEN Capital Markets Info meeting at 2 PM local time
Mar 2: BIMAS 4Q21 results cons TL 329 mn ATA 649 mn
Mar 3: February Inflation figure.
Mar 3: ENKAI 4Q21 results cons TL 830 mn
Mar 4: Feb REER
Mar 4: PGSUS 4Q21 results cons TL -717 mn ATA -656 mn