Our Magazine Group followed closely the developments related to the sale of SASA, Turkey's oldest and largest polyester producer, for a foreign company which had attracted great response, and the local textile manufacturers expressed their comments and said that they would take this issue to the Competition Authority. Thus, the Competition Authority has launched an investigation on the matter and the sale transaction was not concluded. The local textile suppliers which want to purchase SASA continue to negotiate with Sabancı Holding.
‘‘We Consider that SASA is a National Issue’’
İsmail Gülle, Chairman of Istanbul Textile and Raw Materials Exporters' Association (İTHİB), said they had a meeting with Chairperson of Board of Sabancı Holding. Mr.Gülle said: "We, as Turkish textile manufacturers, announced that we want to purchase SASA. We, 10 local companies, will bid together.". Saying that they thought to Güler Sabancı in the meeting that it should not be seen as an individual issue, Gülle stated that: "I have bought my textile raw materials from SASA for 20 years. It is so important to save the Turkey's major strategic facilities. It is not possible to create SASA again.”.
What Was the Process?
In last April, it was announced that 51 percent stake of SASA would be sold to Indian Indorama Group for 62 million dollars. In his speech, İsmail Gülle, who was re-elected as chairman of İTHİB in the same period, said: “In the name of protecting our national values, we have put taxes on imports as a result of long-term struggle. If we had not done these, a lot of local firms would have gone into bankrupt. Although it is expensive, we continue to buy our fibres from SASA. We tried to continue on our way with excitement even if we didn't gain much. Now, the sale of SASA with a sale price even less than a meatball brand made us very upset. We want to produce in Turkey. We are opposed to this sale. We take the issue before the Competition Authority.”. Then, Turkish textile suppliers presented the issue before the Competition Authority because they do not want that a manufacturer having strategic importance is purchased by foreign companies.
What is the Current Situation?
According to the latest developments, saying that the company would not be purchased to the Indian company, Mr. Gülle stated: "SASA is an important raw material value and this value stayed in Turkey. This is a national cause and we were good at first phase. I hope the second phase will be positive. “.10 local companies continue to negotiate with Sabancı Holding for SASA whose sale transactions were stopped by the Competition Authority.
According to information of our news centre, Sabancı Holding is demanding a higher price from Turkish companies, it had demanded $ 62 million from Indian company for sale. The reason why Sabancı Holding demands this amount is the valuation of shares of SASA in the stock market.
It was expected that the purchase of SASA, whose stakeholder of 51 percent is still Sabancı Holding, to the Indian Group would increase the impact of foreign companies in domestic market and would reflect as an increase to the fibre prices. Among the ten firms who want to purchase SASA, there are Gülle Tekstil and Akdeniz Tekstil, which is the company of Zeki Kıvanç, Chairman Mediterranean Textile Exporters' Association.
Why SASA is so Important?
SASA began to operate in the polyester sector in 1966 and since its establishment it has always continued its investments. Continuing its leadership in the polyester industry, SASA established a joint-venture partnership with the world's chemical giant Dupont in 2000 in order to further strengthen its position and then changed its name as DupontSA.
Sabancı Holding purchased the shares of Dupont in 2004 and DupontSA was changed as ADVANSA. In 2005, the name of the Group's Turkish organization was ADVANSA SASA Polyester Sanayi A.Ş. In 2011, Sabancı Holding purchased all the shares of ADVANSA BV and changed its name in September 2011 as SASA.
Having technologies of Nobel, ICI and Dupont, SASA has a strong technical background with more than 1,500 skilled employees, high capacity pioneering production facilities and the Research and Development Centre founded in 2002. A Turkey production facility of SASA which provides its energy directly from the connected facility is located in two different regions in Adana. One of these facilities, Central Facility, is located on 1,000,000 m² and Hacı Ömer Sabancı Organized Industrial Zone Textile Facility which is located on 128.000 m². DMT facility which was established with 60,000 tons / year capacity in 1977 has reached at the current capacity of 280,000 tons / year with the investments made at different times in order to meet the growing need.
