Turkish jeans retailer Mavi intends to list on Borsa Istanbul

Turkish clothing retailer Mavi Giyim plans to list on Istanbul's stock exchange, the company said on Monday, in what will be a test for the exchange 10 months after a coup attempt shook investor confidence in the region.

Chief Executive Officer Cuneyt Yavuz said 82 percent of Mavi's business comes from Turkey, which has a growing and young population but in July the government resisted a dramatic coup attempt and a resulting crackdown has left tens of thousands of people sacked or arrested and unnerved markets.

The Istanbul Stock Exchange has seen a sharp decline in listings: $14.3 million have been raised in IPOs so far this year, compared with $119.9 million in the same period last year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Yavuz said there had been more alarming news out of Turkey than expected, but added: "Our company has come out to be very resilient in terms of the ups and downs of the Turkish market."

Last year Mavi, which was founded in Istanbul in 1991 and has become one of Turkey's best known clothing brands abroad, gained over a million new customers in Turkey and 30 percent of those were under the age of 24, Yavuz said.

It achieved a consolidated revenue of 1.31 billion lira ($368.11 million) and an EBITDA - earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amoritisation - of 170.2 million lira in the 2016 financial year. Yavuz declined to disclose the target valuation but said the company viewed Inditex and H&M as comparable, as well as local players.

H&M is trading at enterprise value to EBITDA ratio of 8.6 for the next 12 months, while Inditex is at 17.6.

Mavi has nearly 400 shops and a presence in some 35 countries. Yavuz said Mavi is opening up bigger stores and growing the existing stores while expanding its foothold in the United States, Canada, Germany, Russia.

The offering will see 50 percent of the company sold by the founding Akarlilar family and Turkven, a private equity fund which invested in Mavi in 2008. They may also sell up to an additional 15 percent, Mavi said.

Turkven also holds investments in shoe retailer Flo and fast fashion chain Koton.

Mavi shares will be offered to international institutional investors, and domestic retail and institutional investors, Mavi said.

Goldman Sachs is acting as global coordinator and, together with Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch, as joint international bookrunners. Turkey's Is Yatirim is acting as domestic coordinator and bookrunner for the global offering.