In what is now the biggest investment by a Turkish company in Iberia, Yilport Holding AS has acquired port operator Tertir-Terminais de Portugal for US$308 million, according to Bloomberg.
The deal includes seven ports in Portugal, two in Spain and a 50% share of a port in Peru. The facilities have annual handling capacity of 2.7 million TEU.
Yildirim Group, associate company to Yilport, is aiming to increase annual sales to around $5 billion by 2023 from $1.2 billion in 2014 to become one of the top 10 port operators by 2025, according to Yuksel Yildirim, Chairman of Yildirim Group.
Yilport said that 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’s total container-handling capacity will rise to 10 million TEU on the back of the investment.