Under the transaction - held under the auspices of the Turkish Privatisation Agency - the Oger-led group will acquire a 55 per cent share in the Turkish operator, which owns most of the country's fixed-line infrastructure and has about 19 million subscribers. The acquisition still requires final approval from the Turkish competition agency. Once approval is given, the Oger team will make an initial payment of $1,110 million followed by five equal tranches.

The Oger group includes Telecom Italiaand BT Telconsult, BT Group'sinternational consulting arm. It is being advised by Citigroup, ABN Amroand Clifford Chance. The Etisalat team included Turkey's Cetel Calik Enerji.

The privatisation of Turk Telecom is part of an agreement with the IMF and was Ankara's seventh attempt to finalise a sale of the incumbent. Oger Telecom is a majority shareholder in South Africa's third mobile operator Cell Cand has interests in Cayman Islands-registered Inquamm, which owns Portugal's Radiomovel and Romania's Zapp Mobile.