Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan's largest general trading company, announced it would buy stakes in Çalık Enerji, a subsidiary of Turkish conglomerate Çalık Holding. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, published in Japan, Mitsubishi invested $80.5 million in Çalık Enerji to strengthen its operations in the Middle Eastern and Central Asian energy sector. The Nikkei Asian Review also said Mitsubishi bought a 10 percent stake in Çalık Enerji and would consider increasing its shares in the future. According to information available on the website of Çalık Holding, the company earned TL 6.3 billion ($2.342 billion) in total in 2014 and 56 percent of its earnings - totaling TL 3.5 billion - was derived from its energy business. The agreement between Mitsubishi and Çalık Enerji also involves personnel exchanges between the two, Mitsubishi said in a statement on its website. However, the company did not provide any information about the level of investment. Emphasizing that the partnership between Çalık Holding and Mitsubishi dates back to the 1990s when the two companies collaborated on a number of plant construction projects in Central Asia, Mitsubishi also highlighted the fact that it worked with Gap İnşaat, a Çalık Holding subsidiary, in order to secure the order to construct a $1.3 billion fertilizer plant in Turkmenistan.
