Turkey’s leading e-commerce platform Hepsiburada, which has made great efforts for the digitalization of trade recently, becomes the first-ever Turkish company whose initial public offering (IPO) process has been completed on the US stock market Nasdaq. Its share prices started to be traded at about 14 dollars, public offering size was 738 million dollars and the valuation of the company reached 3.9 billion dollars. After its public offering, Hepsiburada has become to be traded on the same stock market with world technology giants such as Microsoft, Tesla, Netflix, Google and Facebook.
The traditional gong ceremony, which is held in honor of the start of trading in the Nasdaq, this time has been held for Hepsiburada. In the online gong ceremony, Nasdaq President and CEO Adena Friedman stated that Hepsiburada was a real source of inspiration for technology start-ups in Turkey and also around the world. Friedman added that she was looking forward to co-writing the future story of Hepsiburada. In addition to her speeches, Friedman said that the “Technology Power for Entrepreneurial Women” program of Hepsiburada has reached more than 19,000 women entrepreneurs since 2017. It is an impressive achievement that more than 20% of the businesses on the Hepsiburada platform are women entrepreneurs today. I have no doubt that Hepsiburada, whose founder is also a woman, will make much more significant progress in this field and create positive changes in the lives of countless women.”
Hanzade Doğan Boyner, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Hepsiburada, spoke at the online press conference and stated that “We will use the public offering income to expand our services not only in Turkey, but also in nearby and high-growth markets. For example, There are strong markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.”
At the meeting, CEO of Hepsiburada, Murat Emirdağ stated that 75% of the company's pre-IPO share distribution was under the control of Hanzade Doğan, and 25% was under the control of Franklin Templeton, a financial investor fund. Emirdağ stated that after the public offering, which took place with the capital increase, the free float rate would be 20%, the share of Hanzade Doğan Boyner and his family would be 65%, and Franklin Templeton's share would be 15%. Emirdağ stated that there would be no change in the decision-making mechanism and Hanzade Doğan Boyner would continue to be the largest shareholder after the public offering.
In addition to his speeches, CEO Emirdağ said, "We also bear a great responsibility. We want to see the public offering as a national success story and want to prove it. We are aware that we are a milestone with the public offering on this scale, and then we will pave the way for many more successful initiatives. With the company's public offering, the trust in Turkey has proven.” Emirdağ added, "Our goal is to strengthen our corporate and financial structure with the public offering, to continuously renew our customer-oriented business processes, technology infrastructure, product and service solutions, and to ensure sustainable growth."
We congratulate Hepsiburada for their initiatives and thank them for being an important role model for all Turkish companies with their success and courage.
