WASHINGTON: Turkish ports and mine operator Yildirim Holding AS aims to expand in the US port industry with plans to spend US$5 billion dollars on acquisitions, as well as another $5 billion which would be spent on building Turkish power plants, according to Bloomberg.
Robert Yuksel Yildirim, Chairman and CEO, said: “We want to help open up US ports to world business if we buy assets there. There are some attractive port assets in the Americas. “We prefer to sell the stake to infrastructure or sovereign wealth or pension funds because they are long term investors.”
It was previously reported by PTI that APM Terminals (APMT) had made a $400 million investment to develop a Turkish container terminal at Petkim Port. APMT’s 1.3 million TEU deep-water in Turkey is also nearing completion, and is anticipated to commence operations in early 2016. The US port market is presently embracing a change as the first mega-ship calls are beginning in the country. A move that could signal a much more lucrative market.
It was recently announced that the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, which have recently united in the Northwest Seaport Alliance, are about to expand berths in order to allow to mega-ships to berth at once. 2015 saw the entrance of UAE-based Gulftainer into the US port operating market, and now Yildirim look to be aiming to follow in the Middle Eastern operators footsteps.
