Japanese technology company Secom and Turkish financial technology company Aktif Bank, a concern of Çalık Group, have jointly established Secom Aktif Yatırım A.Ş.
The company will offer end-to-end security solutions to companies and individual users with its turn-key projecting model.
Investment Office President Arda Ermut said that the strong cooperation between Turkey and Japan would move a further with the Secom and Aktif Bank deal.
He said Turkey and Japan share strong ties but their full potential is not reflected in trade and investments. "As of 2018, the trade volume between the two countries stood at $4.6 billion, while exports to Japan amounted to $479 million," he said, adding that they were actually very low.
Ermut said that Japan's total foreign direct investment in Turkey is around $3.2 billion. "Furthermore, during the 2011-2017 period, when we attracted more serious investments, especially from Japan, there were approximately 45 mergers and acquisitions realized by Japanese companies in Turkey." "As a result, we think that the office should be able to raise the figures much higher. All our work is aimed in that direction. We have more than 200 Japanese capital companies in Turkey. We need to bring new companies. We are happy to be adding one more to the list today."
He noted that Japan made its first investment in Turkey with a silk weaving factory in Bursa in 1929 and underlined that it was the first foreign investment in the history of the Turkish Republic.
Ahmet Çalık, chairman of Çalık Holding and Aktif Bank, said that the strong friendship between the two countries will also contribute to commercial relations and that they have started activities in the field of digitalization with the new company.
"With this cooperation, we aim to provide organizations with guidance in life technologies and support the transformation in the most efficient way," he said. "Secom Aktif Yatırım, which was realized with a strong capital structure of two companies and a 50/50 partnership, aims to grow in Turkey by making acquisitions in both organic and inorganic ways in the coming period."
Secom Chairman Yasuo Nakayama said that in the Secom Group Road Map 2022, declared in May 2018, they announced a sustainable growth plan by solving social problems and increasing the value of the company. He highlighted that they are in search of potential countries in line with their road map. "As a result of our research, we decided that the 19th country we will take our international activities to will be Turkey. In addition to Turkey's geopolitical importance, the development potential of its economic growth due to the increase in the working population was also instrumental in this [decision]," Nakayama noted.
Nakayama said Secom has become Japan's first and the world's fourth-largest company in its field. He said Turkey has high growth potential, a young population and major economic territories such as Europe, the Middle East and Russia as its neighbors. "It is one of the historical points of attraction where the heart of the economy beats. That's why we decided to invest here."
Aktif Bank, the financial technology platform of Çalık Group and the largest private investment bank in Turkey, invested in the security technologies sector in cooperation with Secom, one of the world's leading integrated security providers with advanced technology and expertise in Japan and the world.
In addition to individual users, Secom Aktif Yatırım A.Ş. will provide end-to-end security solutions to corporate companies with turn-key project design.
Founded with a 50/50 partnership, the joint company made a major investment in the Turkish security sector, which reached a size of about $4.6 billion.