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Netherlands.
The companies did not disclose the financial details of the transaction.
Founded in 1994 in Turkey, ASAV ranked number one in Turkey’s Top 5 Agents by tonnage flown in the 2017 and 2018 yearly IATA rankings, offering professional air, ocean and road freight services.
It operates a warehouse of 452,000 square metres in Istanbul combining bonded and non-bonded storage areas and a bonded warehouse of 21,500 square metres in Amsterdam.
The acquisition of ASAV underlines foreign companies’ interest in the Turkish logistics industry.
Back in 2013, Hitachi bought Mars Lojistik while another Japanese firm, Yusen, acquired the local logistics company Catoni in 2012. The Japanese firm later bought a 32% stake in Inci Lojistik in 2017.
Last year, Esas Holding-Actera divested UN Ro-Ro to Denmark’s DFDS for a consideration of €950mn.
Herbert Deiss, CEO of German auto giant Volkswagen, has cast further doubt on the company committing to constructing an auto production plant in Turkey. In a post on Linkedin, referencing Turkey’s ongoing military operation in northeast Syria, he wrote that “As long as people are being killed, we are not laying the foundation stone next to a battlefield.”
He made the comment despite acknowledging “the fact that a plant in Turkey is in our economic interest” and that “With its large market and good industrial base, Turkey is a very suitable production location for us.”
Volkswagen, said Deiss, “shares the assessment of the German government and the European Union on the military conflict in northern Syria”.
Deiss said he had received many appeals from the public and personal letters as regards the possible new Volkswagen plant in Turkey.
If businesses regarded international law and human rights as the sole responsibility of governments, the market economy would lose its ethical foundation, he said, adding that Volkswagen had postponed its decision on the plant until the end of the year.
Deiss’s announcement on the postponement of the investment plans comes not long after Volkswagen’s powerful trade unions vowed to block the auto giant’s proposal to build the $1.4bn plant in in the western Turkish province of Manisa, until the violence brought about by Ankara’s military offensive in Syria has been brought to an end.
“Our decision on a new plant in Turkey is still open,” Deiss concluded.
US hedge fund York Capital is leading a trio of firms that is considering buying a minority stake in Turkish generic drug maker Sanovel, three people with knowledge of the talks that could lead to a deal told Reuters on November 19.
Metric Capital Partners and Morgan Stanley are the other parties involved in talks over a possible purchase from Sanovel parent Toksoz Group, said two of the sources.
“The Toksoz family are holding talks to restructure their loans; at the same time they are holding talks to sell a minority stake in Sanovel,” one source reportedly said.
44 TURKEY Country Report December 2019 www.intellinews.com
