Sedef Gemi Insaati A.S. (Sedef Shipyard)

Sedef Shipyard was founded at Gebze in Kocaeli in 1972 and moved to Tuzla, the shipbuilding strip on the Asian side of Istanbul, in 1990. Turkon Holding, the Kalkavan family shipping group, took it over in 2000. By area and capacity it is the largest privately owned yard in Turkey, spread across roughly 270,000 square metres between the Tuzla site and a second facility at Orhanli, with one of the country's biggest dry docks, an annual steel throughput near 100,000 tonnes and building capacity quoted at 600,000 deadweight tonnes. More than 2,000 people work there. The yard only qualified for military work in 2009, which makes what followed unusually quick.

In 2013 Sedef won the Turkish Navy's landing helicopter dock competition, partnered with Navantia of Spain on a design derived from the Juan Carlos I. Construction of TCG Anadolu started in 2015, the keel was laid in April 2016, the ship was launched in 2019 and commissioned on 10 April 2023, and at that point it became the largest vessel the Turkish Navy has ever operated. The contract covered more than the mother ship, taking in four landing craft mechanised, two landing craft vehicle personnel, two rigid hulled inflatables and a commander's boat. Because Turkey lost access to the F-35B, the ship was reworked around drones instead, which is why it is commonly described as a drone carrier. The yard is now building one of the three follow-on Istif class frigates ordered in April 2023 under the MILGEM programme from a consortium of the Anadolu, Sedef and Sefine yards with STM, and it launched the future TCG Izmit after laying that keel in 2024. Earlier naval work includes the replenishment oiler Yarbay Kudret Gungor, laid down in 1993 and commissioned in 1995, which was the first warship built for the Turkish Navy by a private yard.

Commercial construction is the other half and keeps the docks busy between naval milestones. Sedef builds roll-on roll-off and ro-pax ferries, container ships, tankers, offshore support vessels, fishing vessels, floating docks and heavy steel structures for industry, and it signed for three electric ro-pax ferries with the Norwegian operator Boreal Sjo. The yard is also the builder behind several Karadeniz Powership vessels, floating power plants converted or constructed for deployment to countries with unreliable grids, a niche that barely existed before Karadeniz Holding invented it. Ship repair, conversion and dry docking round out the offer, supported by classification approvals, a NATO facility security clearance and authorised customs operator status. Membership of the Turkish shipbuilders association TAIS puts it inside the consortium structure that now wins most Turkish naval work. That arrangement matters more than it sounds. Turkey now spreads its warship orders across several private yards working to a common design authority, so a yard that is inside the consortium gets a share of every class, and a yard outside it gets none.