Borsa Istanbul CEO Hakan Atilla resigns from post

Borsa Istanbul CEO Hakan Atilla resigned from his post on March 8. Earlier reports said that he went on a leave on March 5 and wasn't planning to get back to work.

Monday March 08 2021 12:06 pm

Duvar English

Borsa Istanbul Chief Executive Officer Hakan Atilla resigned from his post on March 8.

Earlier reports said that he was planning to step down after the stock-exchange operator’s annual general meeting on March 26.

Atilla went on a leave on March 5 and wasn't planning to get back to work until shareholders convene later this month, sources had told Bloomberg.

Borsa Istanbul’s owner, the Turkish sovereign wealth fund TWF, is planning an initial public offering of the exchange operator by 2022.

Atilla was appointed to the role in October 2019 by former Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after being sentenced to 32 months in prison in the U.S. over helping Iran evade sanctions while he worked at Turkey’s Halkbank.

At the time of Atilla's conviction, Erdoğan branded the case as an attack on his government, claiming that it was "politically motivated."