Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) has announced auctions for insurance agency Sürat Sigorta and paper company Kaynak Kağıt in October, continuing the sale of businesses seized during the government’s crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement.
The sale notices were published in Tuesday’s Official Gazette, the Ekonomi newspaper reported. Both auctions will begin with sealed bids, followed by open bidding.
The TMSF is offering all shares in the Treasury-owned Sürat Sigorta, which it has valued at TL 455,000 (about $9,400).
Bidders must submit their sealed offers by October 6. The bids will be opened in the presence of bidders or their legal representatives on October 7, followed by open bidding.
Kaynak Kağıt has been valued at TL 150 million (about $3.1 million). Its auction is scheduled for October 6, with bids due by the previous day. Both auctions will take place at the TMSF’s headquarters in İstanbul.
Kaynak Kağıt was part of Kaynak Holding, a conglomerate seized over its links to the Gülen movement.
The government took control of the group before a coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
Trustees were appointed in November 2015, and management of 43 companies was transferred to the TMSF in October 2016 under a state of emergency decree.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted the Gülen movement, a worldwide civic initiative inspired by the ideas of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who died in 2024, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after the coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The crackdown also targeted Kaynak Holding’s former owners and staff. In October 2017 prosecutors ordered the detention of 110 former owners, executives and employees, following detention warrants for 103 former executives in June of that year.
The latest auctions follow other efforts to sell businesses seized over alleged Gülen links.
In June the TMSF offered all shares in five companies belonging to Maydonoz Döner, a Turkish fast-food chain specializing in döner kebab, for sale as a single package, with an estimated value of TL 1.95 billion (about $40.2 million at current exchange rates). The auction was scheduled for June 24.
The government’s campaign against the movement began before the coup attempt and intensified afterward, with mass detentions, dismissals from public service and the seizure of hundreds of businesses.
Government figures reported in July put the cumulative number of companies put under state trusteeship over alleged Gülen links at 784.
Their combined assets totaled TL 42.3 billion (about $873 million at current exchange rates) when they were taken over. The lira figure combines historical balance sheets across several years; the dollar equivalent does not represent their value at the time of seizure or today.
This article is republished from Turkish Minute.
