Milan (Standard&Poor's) Dec. 17, 2001--Standard&Poor's today affirmed all its ratings on Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. (Turkcell), the leading operator of mobile telephony in Turkey, and on the company's guaranteed financing vehicle Cellco Finance N.V. At the same time, the ratings were removed from CreditWatch, where they had been placed with negative implications on Feb. 21, 2001. The outlook is negative. (See list below for all rating details.) The rating actions follow Standard&Poor's evaluation of the measures taken by Turkcell to enhance its cash flow generation and face its debt obligations in 2002. The ratings primarily reflect the company's very limited short-term financial flexibility, and its high exposure to foreign-currency denominated debt and to the
