(Bloomberg) -- A little-known Turkish holding company completed its second acquisition of a fuel retailer within months, extending a push by independent firms into a tightly regulated market that oil majors BP Plc and TotalEnergies SE have left.
Istanbul-based Zeren Group, which was all but unknown to the public until this year, received antitrust approval to buy Turkey’s TP Petrol Dagitim AS on Tuesday, following its acquisition of a smaller retailer, Alpet, in February.
The deals, whose prices weren’t disclosed, give Zeren a network of 1,120 gas stations in the country. That’s equivalent to around 6.5% of the national fuel market, which grew 7.9% to $35 billion of sales in 2023, according to energy regulator EPDK.
The buying spree comes after several international majors decided to exit the market, in which profitability is limited by price controls set by the regulator. BP Plc sold its Turkish fuel network to global commodity trader Vitol’s Petrol Ofisi AS unit earlier this year, and TotalEnergies SE sold its to Turkey’s military pension fund Oyak Group in 2020.
The market is highly fragmented beyond a few major players. As of 2023, Petrol Ofisi had the biggest share at 22%, followed by Shell Plc unit Shell & Turcas Petrol AS’s 19.7% and Koc Holding subsidiary Opet Petrolculuk’s 19%, regulator data show.
“We see growth in energy as protecting a strategic area for our country and increasing the diversity and quality of services offered to consumers,” Zeren Group’s CEO Mustafa Yigit Zeren said in an emailed statement following the TP Petrol deal.
Zeren’s interests include energy, media, shipping and tourism across four continents, according to its website. It also applied to the antitrust authority last year to acquire a small lender called Turkland Bank, known as T-bank, from Bankmed SAL and Arab Bank Plc to expand into banking.
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