Investors in the liquidated funds have been paid about 161 billion lira, and the government says interim payments will continue

Where the payments stand

Investors in the funds that Türkiye ordered wound up after this autumn’s fund scandal have now been paid about 161 billion lira in cash and in kind, the presidency’s Directorate of Communications said on Friday after the tenth meeting of the Fund Coordination Board.

Including the payments made on 13 November, 444,893 individual investors in a total of 119 funds have received money through the ordinary and extraordinary liquidation processes, the statement said. Of them, 333,493 have received the whole of their net investment as an interim payment. The figures were carried by A Haber, Cumhuriyet, Habertürk and Diken.

The board met under Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, with officials from the justice ministry, the treasury and finance ministry and the agencies attached to them. Sabah reported that the round followed payments to small investors holding up to 1 million lira, which ended the second stage of the payouts.

Who is left out

Inspections led by the justice ministry, the deposit insurance fund TMSF and the financial crimes board MASAK have identified people who, in the statement’s words, made unjust and exorbitant gains through market-disrupting activity. Legal proceedings against them are continuing, and they have been excluded from the interim payments.

“Interim payments will be made in a way that lets the largest number of investors receive payment. In the coming period, interim payments will continue under the coordination of our institutions responsible for the liquidation process.”

Directorate of Communications, Habertürk(translated)

How the payouts began

The first interim payments from the funds under extraordinary liquidation reached holders’ accounts on 30 October. They rest on Law No. 7596 on certain investment funds ordered into liquidation, passed by parliament on 22 October, and on a Capital Markets Board decision of 27 October that set the rules for the liquidation and the payments.

Diken recalled how the scandal unfolded. After it broke in mid-September, the Istanbul prosecutors’ investigation jailed nine businessmen in its first wave, including the owners of the fund companies Tera, Pusula, Destek and Hedef. By the end of September 85 people were in jail, among them a former deputy governor of the central bank.

On 9 October Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said 187 billion lira of unjust fund gains had been identified, and on 9 November it was reported that 31.6 billion lira had been returned. Former family minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, who resigned after it emerged that she and her husband had made large profits through one fund, was jailed on 5 November, Diken noted.