Turkey detains Tera Holding chairman Tezmen and two board members in funds probe
Turkey's market regulator has ordered the liquidation of about 130 investment funds worth roughly $18.3 billion managed by seven firms, including Tera.
Published
Turkish authorities detained Tera Holding chairman Emre Tezmen along with board members Emre Alkin and Kerem Alkin on September 19, broadcaster NTV reported, as cited by Bloomberg.
The detentions widen a probe that two days earlier had produced only a travel ban for Tezmen, Bloomberg reported. Turkey's Capital Markets Board has ordered the liquidation of about 130 investment funds worth roughly $18.3 billion across seven portfolio management firms, including Tera, according to CryptoBriefing. Two of Tera's funds faced redemption defaults totaling about $7.5 billion, CryptoBriefing reported.
Tezmen had described the episode on September 17 as a "planned, deliberate and organized speculative attack," calling the cash shortage at some Tera funds temporary, Turkish Minute reported. MSCI warned in June that it could reclassify Turkey from emerging market to frontier market status if regulators failed to show progress on coordinated-trading concerns by November, according to Turkish Minute.
The detention adds to mounting governance and sanctions pressure on Turkish entities. Combined with prior US Treasury sanctions on Turkey-based operations and a recent drop in Turkish stocks, the case points to rising execution risk for Turkish companies and points to tighter regulatory scrutiny ahead.