Bismarck
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2011
- Messages
- 4,807
- Reaction score
- 3
- Country
- Location
An Aug. 5, 2014, analysis in this column said Koç Holding’s armored vehicle manufacturer Otokar could face a challenge from BMC in a contract to build 1,000 indigenous main battle tanks, despite being the creator of a prototype of the armored carrier, the Altay. Fourteen months later, BMC’s boss Ethem Sancak whose personal friendship with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is well-known, said his company would bid for the multibillion-dollar tank contract. Sancak said BMC would join the bidding with foreign partners he declined to name.
Otokar designed, developed and is producing four prototypes, under a $500 million contract, of the Altay, the new-generation Turkish tank, but a much bigger contract for its serial production is in the offing.
Defense procurement authorities will officially launch the contract for the serial production of the Altay after the prototype program has been completed.
Only a few months after a June 2013 political row between Koç and the government, the group’s shipyards lost a nearly $2 billion deal which it had won on an interim basis. That row has already subsided, but Sancak is a challenging newcomer in the armor market.
The first major public tension between Koç and Erdoğan’s government emerged in 2013 during the Gezi Park protests. In one incident during the month-long anti-government demonstrations, protesters attempted to escape police tear gas and pepper spray by taking refuge in an Istanbul hotel, the Divan, owned by Koç. Hotel management admitted the protesters into its lobby, which quickly turned into a makeshift first aid room
More
Another Koç business casualty in silent war with government? - DEFENSE UPDATE
Otokar designed, developed and is producing four prototypes, under a $500 million contract, of the Altay, the new-generation Turkish tank, but a much bigger contract for its serial production is in the offing.
Defense procurement authorities will officially launch the contract for the serial production of the Altay after the prototype program has been completed.
Only a few months after a June 2013 political row between Koç and the government, the group’s shipyards lost a nearly $2 billion deal which it had won on an interim basis. That row has already subsided, but Sancak is a challenging newcomer in the armor market.
The first major public tension between Koç and Erdoğan’s government emerged in 2013 during the Gezi Park protests. In one incident during the month-long anti-government demonstrations, protesters attempted to escape police tear gas and pepper spray by taking refuge in an Istanbul hotel, the Divan, owned by Koç. Hotel management admitted the protesters into its lobby, which quickly turned into a makeshift first aid room
More
Another Koç business casualty in silent war with government? - DEFENSE UPDATE
