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Turkey, Turkish American Businessman to Make Satellites in Mideast

Turkey's top aerospace company and the Sierra Nevada Corporation, or SNC, a United States’ satellite company owned by a Turkish American, have agreed to cooperate to jointly make satellites for Middle Eastern companies, officials from both firms told the Hürriyet Daily News on Wednesday.

"I think we can do lots of business in this area," said Muharrem Dörtkaşlı, general manager of Turkish Aerospace Industries, or TAI. "Sierra Nevada has all the qualities we seek.”

"We selected a Gulf country to focus our efforts toward to make satellites for Middle Eastern countries," Fatih Özmen, president and chief executive of SNC, on the sidelines of the International Defense Industry Fair, or IDEF, 2011, Turkey's most major defense fair held bi-annually.

May 11, 2011
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Global Buyout Fund Reaches An Agreement to Acquire Stake in Yargici

Yargici store at Nisantasi, 0stanbul.

Global Capital Management LTD, the alternative asset management arm of Global Investment House (Global), announced that the Global Buyout Fund (the Fund) has reached an agreement to acquire a stake in Yargici Konfeksiyon Ihracat ve Ticaret A.S. (Yargici), the leading upmarket women's apparel and accessories retailer in Turkey. Transaction will be finalized subject to regulatory approval.

Founded in 1978, Yargici is a premium retailer of women's apparel and accessories, operating in Istanbul (17), Ankara (2), Izmir (2), Bodrum (1) and Paris (1) with 23 stores and employs 252 people. Target customer base of the company is concentrated in the upper-middle to high income segment, within the range of A and B+ classes and aged between 19 and 55. The Company's sales grew at a CAGR of 32% between 2008 and 2010, whereas the women's apparel market grew at a CAGR of 2% during the same period.

May 9, 2011
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Turkey at Heart of New 'Not-Quite-BRIC' Index

A few months back, economists were openly debating whether fast-growing Turkey should be elevated into the elite club of ‘BRIC’ economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China — that are slated to dominate global growth over the next decades.

Aside from the fact that it would have made the acronym less catchy (think BRICT or TRIBC) investor concerns over Turkey’s rapidly widening current account deficit and Middle East turmoil conspired to put that debate on ice. But Turkey is considered a key player in the second-tier of emerging economic powerhouses: referred to by the lesser known, and, alas, more forgettable acronym CIVETS.

Turkey, Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa and Egypt — all large, but not continental size economies with young populations — have been attracting waves of foreign investment. These economies are expanding robustly, are not overly reliant on natural resources and — with the exception of Egypt — possess relative political stability.

May 3, 2011
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U.S. Should Legalize Drugs, Says Former Mexican President Fox

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said this week that the only way to end the drug violence plaguing his country is for the United States to legalize drugs.

"As a country, we are going through problems due to the fact that the United States consumes too many drugs," Fox, who served as Mexico's president from 2000-2006, told reporters Monday night before a speech at the Turkish-American Chamber of Commerce in San Antonio.

"I would recommend to legalize, de-penalize all drugs," Fox added. He said the drug violence threatens to rip his country apart. It has claimed more than 37,000 lives in Mexico since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and sent the army to combat cartels fighting for smuggling routes to the United States.

President Barack Obama has made it a priority to work with Calderon to curb smuggling over the nearly 2,000-mile border, a lucrative transit point for criminal networks hauling drugs and illegal immigrants north to the United States and guns and billions in cash profits south to Mexico.