Turkish gunmaker Canik buys UK’s AEI Systems

ISTANBUL

Canik, one of the world’s leading arms manufacturers, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of the well-established British defense company AEI Systems.

For the first time, a Turkish company bought a defense firm in the U.K., said Zafer Aral, the board chair of Samsun Yurt Savunma, the owner of Canik.

The U.K. government approved the acquisition deal in December last year.

“Forging cooperation with leading countries in the defense industry is important for Canik. We have created a large ecosystem with our production facility in the U.K., the plant we are about to complete in Florida, the U.S., and four facilities in [the northern Turkish province of] Samsun,” Aral said.

Canik produces handguns, machineguns and smart armor. “Thanks to this partnership, Canik’s high production capacity of arms using the latest technologies, Unirobotics’s remote control weapons stations and AEI Systems knowledge of medium calibers for 60 years have come together,” the company said in a statement.

The cannons which will be mass-produced both in Türkiye and the U.S. will be available for use on the remote-controlled weapon systems (RCWS) on land, air and naval platforms, the statement added.

Senior executives from the Turkish and British companies provided the details of the deal at a reception held at the Consulate General of the U.K. in Istanbul.

Delighted to host the reception to celebrate an important investment made by SYS and their Canik brand into AEI Systems, Kenan Poleo, Britain’s consul general and trade commissioner for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, wrote on Twitter.

“A new partnership between the U.K. and Türkiye…The SYS and AEI partnership is an important initiative to strengthen the cooperation between our countries,” Poleo said.