Is Celebi Aviation India really a Turkish firm? Erdogan's stance proves costly as company's stocks tumble 10%

Çelebi Aviation India, a foreign firm that had been handling the ground services for the last 15 years in Indian airports, is suddenly finding itself in a fix. As protests mount over Turkey's stance favouring Pakistan in the recent conflict, the Union government revoked the security clearance of the aviation firm.

 

Soon Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGI) terminated its contract with Çelebi Aviation, citing security concerns. Adani Airport Holdings followed suit by terminating the ground handling concession agreements for the Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Mangalore, Guwahati, Jaipur, Lucknow, and Thiruvananthapuram airports. 

 

The loss of Indian operations had a strong impact on  Çelebi Aviation's parent firm Çelebi Hava Servisi AS which plunged a whopping 10 per cent on Friday morning.

 

Çelebi operates in India under two entities — Çelebi Airport Services India for ground handling and Çelebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India for cargo services at Delhi International Airport. Both companies come under Çelebi NAS Airport Services, which handles 70% of ground operations at Mumbai Airport and nine other cities, including Hyderabad, Cochin, and Chennai. 

 

Now that its operations in India have ceased, Çelebi has reiterated that it is not a Turkish firm. It claims the rumours about its ownership and operations in India as "misleading and factually incorrect."

 

“We are not a Turkish organisation by any standard and adhere fully to globally accepted practices of corporate governance, transparency, and neutrality, with no political affiliations or links to any foreign government or individuals”, the official statement by the company read. The last bit of its statement refers to the speculations that one of its owners is Sümeyye Erdoğan, daughter of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

  

Çelebi says it has no links to Sümeyye, including shareholding or ownership.

 

But, then who owns Çelebi? Çelebi Aviation states that 65% of its ownership lies with these international investors, with Actera Partners II L.P., a Jersey-registered fund. However, Actera Partners II's profile says it is a "2012 vintage buyout fund managed by Actera Group located in Saint Helier, United Kingdom and invests in Turkey and Northern Africa."

 

Of the remaining stocks, 50% belongs to Çelebi Havacılık Holding A.Ş. and the remaining 15% is owned by Alpha Airport Services BV, a Dutch-registered entity. 

 

 Çelebi Havacılık Holding A.Ş. is indeed a Turkish-based firm, founded by Ali Cavit Çelebioğlu in Balıkesir-Gönen. The Turkish shareholding is limited solely to members of the founding Çelebioğlu family- Can Çelebioğlu and Canan Çelebioğlu, children of Ali Cavit.

 

In an interview with Forbes Turkey in 2019, Canan, daughter of Ali Cavit, had earlier mentioned how "passionate she was about India". She had expressed interest in being permanent in the country and claimed to have invested 165 million dollars in India in the last 5-6 years. 

 

However, the company claims she has no political affiliations or associations.

Middle East