Turkish Stock Exchange Reopens

Turkey’s first stock exchange in more than 60 years was opened here Thursday by Deputy Prime Minister Kaya Erdem.

A stock exchange was first established in Istanbul in the late 19th Century, but with the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, it was reduced to a set of brokers’ offices.

Born out of a financial scandal in 1982, the new trading floor for securities is part of a scheme drawn up by the government to regulate capital markets.

It occupies a restored 19th-Century savings institution. Twenty-five banks, nine brokerage houses and two individual brokers are licensed to operate.

Strict Rules

Exchange Chairman Muharrem Karsli said rules for admission as a broker and trading of shares were very strict, in reaction to the market crash of 1982.

That summer, Turkey’s leading brokerage house banker, Kastelli, collapsed due to the default of some borrowers, bringing down three small banks whose certificates of deposit Kastelli was selling.

Brokers did not anticipate extensive trading in the new exchange. No shares were traded today.

They said that, because of the family ownership of most big Turkish industrial companies, not many shares reach the marketplace.

Although there are over 600 companies registered at the stock exchange, only 40 to 50 of them were previously traded through the brokers’ offices.

Government and private sector bonds issued in the first 10 months of this year totalled $818 million.