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Geden Line (Shipping company, Turkey)

House flag of Geden Line - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 December 2019

Presentation of Geden Line
House flag of Geden Line
Former flags of Geden Line

See also:

Turkey

Presentation of Geden Line

For sure one of the largest shipowning companies in the country, Geden Line is a subsidiary of Turkish conglomerate Çukurova Holding AS, one of the largest industrial and commercial national groups, set up in 1923 and owned by Karamehmet family (reference businessman is Mehmet Emin Karamehmetm, supposed to be the country's richest man), and involved in many diverse activities such as banking, insurance, investment, construction, trade, media, communication, information technology, travel services, transportation. In comparison with all activities, shipping is certainly marginal in terms of size.

Genel Denizcilik (Geden) Line was incorporated in 1975 (albeit being domiciled in Malta) to carry out shipowning, chartering and agency services to provide a marine transportation division to complement Çukurova's extensive operations relating to steel production, importing raw materials and exporting finished product. In fact the first vessels acquired were small dry bulk vessels principally for coastal trading employed on liner routes between Turkey and Europe.
The company - whose CEO is Tugrul Tokgoz, who joined twenty years ago and has been part of the Board at Çukurova Holding since 2002 – has maintained a relatively small fleet for twenty years.

In the early ‘90s a new management decided to enter more aggressively the dry bulk market by renovating the whole fleet, although always buying second hand vessels. Across the end of the past century Geden Line decided to enter the newbuilding arena, and shipping became an independent profit center within the Group. In four years a tremendous program of fleet expansion was substantiated into 19 vessels commissioned to Far Eastern shipyards for an investment of 500 million dollars. Among the newbuildings were 10 products tankers of 37,000 dwt ordered at Hyundai Mipo worth 250 million dollar. All these vessels were resold upon delivery to owners such as Laliotos of Greece (4 vessels), OMI Group (2), Pietro Barbaro of Italy (1), Marlink of Germany (2) and Angelopoulos of Greece (1), making overall a margin of 40 million dollars.
Another booming expansion occurred in 2004 when 25 newbuildings were ordered in three years for a value of some 750 million dollar. Lately Geden, taking advantage of the same mechanism, was able to resell 16 out of those 25 newbuildings making a 85 million margin overall and since 2006 reinvested that cash by ordering 8 Suezmax worth 1.25 million dwt at Rongsheng in China.

At the end of 2010, Geden Line owned a fleet of 33 vessels: four 156,000 dwt suezmax tankers, six 115,000 dwt aframax tankers, seven 37,000 dwt, two 47,000 dwt and three 50,100 dwt product tankers, three 177,000 dwt bulk carriers and eight 53,000 dwt handymax bulk carriers.
[Ship2Shore, 22 July 2013]

Ivan Sache, 15 DEcember 2019

Flag of Geden Line

The house flag of Geden Line is white with the company's emblem, composed of an anchor surrounded by letters "G" and "D", all red on a white background, framed by a red oval.
[Ships and Flags, by Josef Nüsse]

Ivan Sache, 15 December 2019

Former flags of Geden Line

Former house flags of Geden Line - Images by Jarig Bakker, 13 February 2006, and Ivan Sache, 15 December 2019, respectively

The former flag of Gedel Line was white with the company's former emblem, and the writing "GEDEN LINE" (top). "ISTANBUL" (bottom), all red.BR> [Ships and Flags, by Josef Nüsse]

A probably even older house flag of Geden Line was orange with a wsimilar emblem.
[Brown's Flags and Funnels of Shipping Companies of the World (1995) [lgr95]]

Jarig Bakker & Ivan Sache, 15 December 2019