SPK Decision on Qualified Investors and Professional Clients

The Capital Markets Board (CMB) has raised the total financial assets threshold required for qualified investors and professional client status to 50 million TL, and the transaction volume to 25 million TL. While exemptions regarding the sale of real estate and venture capital investment funds have been removed with the new regulation, industry experts emphasize that access to hedge funds will become more difficult.

According to the decision made at the Capital Markets Board's (CMB) meeting dated October 26, 2026, in the regulations concerning investment institutions, the total financial assets requirement for those to be accepted as demand-based professional clients was increased from 10 million TL to 50 million TL, and the transaction volume amount was raised from 5 million TL to 25 million TL. In parallel with this change, the amounts stipulated for legal entities to be considered professional clients were also revised. While the qualified investor conditions in various communiques of the Board were updated, the previously established exemption regarding qualified investors to whom participation shares of real estate investment funds and venture capital investment funds would be sold was removed, and these investors were subjected to general qualified investor amounts.

Onur Duygu, Founder of FonTurkey and an industry representative, stated that raising the requirement to become a qualified investor to 50 million liras will make access to hedge funds more difficult and could accelerate exits from funds. Duygu emphasized that with the new regulation, those who previously met the definition of a qualified investor will now need to document that they possess assets of 50 million TL and above in order to make new purchases, otherwise they will only be able to take action in the direction of selling.