Soda Sanayii

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The proposed investment is an IFC equity investment of up to US$25 million in Soda Sanayii’s (‘Soda’ or the ‘company’), the chemicals company of Turkiye Sise ve Cam Fabrikalari A.S. (‘Sisecam’ or the ‘Group’), a leading regional glass producer in Turkey. IFC proposes to purchase shares in Soda from two other Sisecam Group companies, Trakya Cam and Anadolu Cam. IFC’s investment will not be utilized by Soda, but rather by Trakya Cam and Anadolu Cam in targeted resource efficiency investments including waste heat recovery for power generation and glass recycling.Sisecam, Soda’s parent was established in 1935 by Isbank, one of the largest commercial banks in Turkey. Sisecam is among the 12 largest glass producers in the world with 3.5 million tons of production capacity, and is organized into four main subsidiaries split along business lines: Trakya Cam (flat glass), Pasabahce Cam (tableware), Anadolu Cam (glass packaging) and Soda Sanayii (chemicals). IFC has a long-standing relationship with Sisecam developed over 40 years in Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria and Bosnia (53 % outside Turkey). At present IFC has outstanding loans to several of the Group’s glass companies and to the company’s soda ash manufacturing subsidiary located in Lukavac, Bosnia Herzegovina, SSL Bosnia (“SSL”). IFC’s most recent investment in SSL was in 2013. Ongoing supervision of the existing investments indicates the Group’s environmental and social performance is generally satisfactory.Soda produces soda ash in three plants in Turkey (“Mersin”), Bosnia Herzegovina (“SSL”) and Bulgaria (“Sodi”). The total installed soda ash production capacity is around 2 million tonnes per annum (tpa) and the split is as follows; Mersin Plant, Turkey (1.3 million tpa); Lukavac plant, Bosnia Herzegovina (420,000 tpa); and Sodi (363,000 tpa). In addition, chromium chemicals are produced at the Kromsan plant in Mersin and at Cromital S.p.A in Italy. The total installed capacity of chromium chemicals is as follows; Kromsan plant, Mersin (sodium bichromate -110,000 tpa; basic chromium sulphate - 125,000 tpa; chromic acid - 28,000 tpa) and Cromital plant, Italy (based on powdered basic chromium sulphate - 14,000 tpa). The company’s soda production volume ranks it amongst the top four producers in Europe and top 10 globally. The company holds a strong position in the global chromium chemicals market as the top producer of sodium dichromate and basic chromium sulphate, and is the third largest producer of chromic acid.