A BROKER STORY
Ahmet Kulacoglu graduated from the City of London Polytechnic Ship Management in 1975 and started working as an office boy at his father’s company. For him, maritime is a family tradition, and construction and management of 1,000 dwt coaster was an important factor in the practice of his academic knowledge.
Ahmet Kulacoglu explains his way of operation in the sector since then: “At those times, I learned that relationships with shipyards, classification societies, port and personnel are basic factors of management. Brokerage was a new concept. Being one of the first in this field brought me the advantage to make a name in the market. Starting with brokerage in import and export fields, I was working with a door-to-door delivery system. Then came the 1980 coup d´état and the Ozal government, and everything changed. With the export mobilization being proclaimed, Turkish contractors have overtaken construction contracts especially in North Africa. Foreign trade capital companies started to emerge. And this condition caused me to start line operations. I had no ships, but in a short period of time, the number of my time charter ships reached 12. We were doing very well, and also Turkey was doing well.” As he purchased two ships by the beginning of 1990s, Kulacoglu stated that in this period, when line operations had really been established, competition between locals and foreigners started: “Although the locals were not so important, foreigners, especially Germans were operating with very modern ships. These ships were called self sustained, multi-purpose ro-ro / lo-lo container ships. For the cargo we needed one week to discharge, these ships could finish in 24 hours. In 1995, I wanted to get such a ship built. But we still needed a broader horizon.”
Ahmet Kulacoglu started operations with his newly built ship in 1997, but confronted a situation he never imagined in the process. Due to political instability, commercial relationships with North African countries to which Turkey was especially exporting and he himself had established a line, worsened and North African countries started to switch to Europe. In that period, governments needed hot money due to internal debts, all sectors and the people gave the government loans, overnight interest rates increased, and Kulacoglu describes the events: “Exports as the main foundation of a country’s development was reduced to nothing. As a result, Europeans captured Turkey’s export markets and these are still not regained. And in this period, I started a line with a ship, of which only 30 examples existed on the world. But there was no job, no exports. I made this investment looking at the statistics of the last 15 years. In 2000, Americans wanted us to sell the ship to the British for laying cable in the ocean. This was a typical English trick, and they did not give us the time charter contract of 5 years at $50,000 per day. They asked me to sell the ship to the British, and they gave them the job. This was Turkey’s situation inside and abroad. So I pulled the brakes in 2000, and in 2001 I accelerated a little under new conditions and in a new style.” Ahmet Kulacoglu continues to conduct general cargo transports with tramp container ships, and working with local and foreign contractors. Kulacoglu aims to convert to handy size ships next, and by defining the shipbuilding business as “the business of the next 50 years”, he gives signals of future developments.
25.03.2009 05:35:45
