Yildirim snaps up Portuguese ports firm
Turkey’s Yilport Holding, part of Yildirim Group, has bought port operator Tertir-Terminais de Portugal from Mota-Engil SGPS and Novo Banco. Yilport is paying EUR275m ($308m) to Mota-Engil and an undisclosed amount to Novo Banco.
The deal includes seven ports in Portugal, two in Spain and a 50 percent share of a port in Peru. The facilities have annual handling capacity of 2.7m teu and 4.5m tons of bulk and grain.
Yildirim Group’s chairman Yuksel Yildirim has stated in the past his aim to build a ports empire that would be within the world’s top 10 by 2025.
Portugal “has enormous potential to benefit from the anticipated increase in trade via the Panama Canal and Yilport considers that the important geo-political relations of the country with Africa and Latin America will generate significant future business opportunities,” Yilport said in a statement.
The deal is the second major ports acquisition on the Iberian peninsula within a month. On September 8 APM Terminals reached an agreement with Perez y Cia to acquire their majority stake in the Barcelona-based Grup Maritim TCB and its maritime services’ container terminal portfolio in Europe and Latin America.