Visiting Turkey as a guest of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Kuwaiti Prime Minister Nasır El Muhammed El Ahmed El Sabah has visited Istanbul Cevahir Shopping Centre which has recently been purchased by Kuwait Investment Authority. Accompanied by Minister of Finance Kemal Unakıtan and Mayor of Istanbul Kadir Topbaş Prime Minister Nasır El Sabah has been presented brief information about the shopping centre. St Martins Property Company and Pradera (responsible for Istanbul Cevahir asset management) and Jones Lang LaSalle management were also present. At the end of his visit Kuwaiti Prime Minister Nasır El Sabah and the Minister of Finance Kemal Unakıtan signed into “Istanbul Cevahir’s book of honour” and Jones Lang LaSalle Turkey Director Richard Davies presented Nasır El Sabah a gift from Paşabahçe.
As it is known, 50% of İstanbul Cevahir’s shares was owned by İstanbul Municipality and was offered to investors in an auction in December, 2006. The shares were bought by St Martins Property. With the transaction made on 5 March, 2007, between St Martins Property which is funded by Kuwait Investment Authority and Cevahir Group, the sales process of İstanbul Cevahir Shopping Mall’s shares has been completed. The total value of acquisition deal is 750 million USD.