TURKEY - Profile - Ugur Bayar.

President of the Privatisation Administration, Bayar has become a powerful civil servant. In his 40s, the authority of his administration is under the Privatisation High Council, which is chaired by the prime minister. In fact Bayar is more powerful than the State Minister in charge of privatisation, Yuksel Yalova, who belongs to the ANAP party (see DT).

Bayar, in his 40s, has a target is to raise $7.6 bn from the privatisation of more than 28 state-controlled companies this year. The first two major public offerings, 51% in Turk Petrol Ofisi (POAS) in March and 31.5% in Tupras in April, brought in more than $2.5 bn. The government also received more than $2.5 bn, much higher than expected, from the sale of the country's third cellular-phone licence. Far more will be raised from the public offering of Turk Telecom.

Companies to be privatised later this year include the giant Petrokimya Holding (Petkim), with the public offering to involve between 15-30% in the petrochemical group, the national airline company Turk Hava Yollari. The private mobile phone operator Turkcell, owned by mainly the local conglomerate Cukurova Holding and Sonera of Finland, is to sell 155 in its first IPO in mid-May and is expecting about $3.9 bn from this.

Buoyed by the success of his administration's sell off this year, Bayar was quoted in the press as saying in April: "Turkey is no longer a 'Yes, but...' story. Without a doubt, we will reach the target of $7.6 billion from the sale of state assets by the end of the year". Meeting potential investors in Boston and New York on April 12-13, Bayar, Central Bank Governor Ercel and other top-tier economic officials and representatives of leading Turkish investment houses were relishing their accomplishments.

Of his impressive roadshows to launch the privatisation programme, Bayar described one of the days in April: "We had a breakfast meeting in Paris, a luncheon in London, an afternoon meeting in Edinburgh and another in London that evening". Starting in Athens, in a symbolic gesture of friend-ship to an old foe and now a "new ally", Bayar and his aides, together with Turkish investors, toured Western capitals. They drummed up foreign investment for a number of imminent sales. Bayar said subsequently: "There could have been mistakes in the past, as there are all over the world on this (privatisation) issue, but the key is to learn from these. What is different now is that there is an overall acceptance of the logic of privatisation. And when selling off, we want as much as possible to include people in the economic apparatus".

Haluk Buyukbas is Bayar's deputy in charge of the energy sector, at the Privatisation Administration. He holds the rank of vice president.