Turkven acquires Provus
Thursday, January 3, 2008

Istanbul - Turkish Daily News

 Turkven Private Equity has acquired 70 percent of Provus Turkey and Provus Romania, the independent payment processor firm in Turkey and its operations in Romania for an undisclosed sum.

 Provus started operations in 2002 and acquired its biggest competitor, AKK Bilişim Hizmetleri, previously known as Anadolu Kredi Kartları, in 2004.

 The company operates the only third-party banking operations center of Turkey in payment processing. The current range of services includes ATM management, acquiring processing, issuing processing, transactional printing and card personalization. Provus provides services to 19 out of 27 card-issuing banks in Turkey and manages 1 million cards currently in circulation.

 Turkven, which raised its first fund in 2002, has invested in seven companies resulting in total equity and debt placements of over $600 million. These include three buyouts, two expansion capital deals and real estate. In 2007, the firm raised its second fund from major international institutional investors, growing its fund size 10-fold and reaching $700 million in assets under management in private equity and real estate.

 “We believe Provus is poised to play a dominant role in the Balkans and the Middle East payment processing markets, and we look forward to working with the company to achieve these goals,” said Evren Unver, founding partner of Turkven.