Franklin Templeton and Turkish private equity firm Actera have joined the race to take over Abraaj's Turkish assets after negotiations with other buyers failed, Reuters reports.
The Dubai-based private equity firm, which has around $13.6bn assets under management, collapsed after allegations of misusing funds earmarked for the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund.
The Turkish assets include the $526m Turkey Fund 1, which was raised in 2016. At that time Abraaj said it had deployed $900m across 11 investments in Turkey over a decade.
According to two sources, Franklin Templeton and Actera are eyeing those assets after previous talks with other bidders such as Turkish private equity company Turkven faltered, two sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters. Canada's Brookfield Asset Management, which was seen as the frontrunner for the Abraaj's Turkish assets, has also pulled out, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.
US investment group Colony Capital has agreed to buy Abraaj's private equity business in Latin America, while TPG has taken control of its $1bn healthcare fund. These are the only two of Abraaj's funds that have successfully found new managers. Actis is the front-runner for the $1bn Abraaj Private Equity Fund IV, but it still needs to convince investors in the fund to vote for the deal.
Abraaj Holdings and Abraaj Investment Management filed for provisional liquidation in the Cayman Islands in June last year and their court-appointed joint provisional liquidators, Deloitte and PwC, are overseeing the restructuring of Abraaj's debt.
