A TURKISH FIRM has bought a 95% stake in the Co Fermanagh-based Mannok, the company once owned by businessman Seán Quinn.

The deal has been undertaken by Çimsa, which is a building materials company that is a subsidiary of Sabancı Holding, which has its headquarters in Istanbul.

Sabancı Holding employs around 60,000 across 14 countries and had a combined revenue of €600 million last year.

The deal places an overall value of €330 million on Mannok, which employs around 800 people.

Çimsa CEO Umut Zenar said he is “committed to preserving the existing workforce and creating new employment opportunities in the region to support Mannok’s further growth under the current strong local leadership team”.

That local leadership team retains a 5.3% stake in Mannok, while Çimsa acquires a 94.7% stake.

Zenar added that the acquisition “opens up a new world” for Mannok and that the company will be “integrated into the Sabancı ecosystem”.

“Together, we aim to create a brand recognized in the region for its rapid growth, customer-focused solutions, and leadership in innovation, sustainability, and digitalization,” said Zenar.

In recent years, Çimsa has expanded into Spain and the United States and the Mannok deal is its third major global initiative in three years.

Meanwhile, the president of Sabancı Holding’s Material Technologies Group Burak Orhu remarked that the deal allows it to “expand our footprint in the UK and Irish markets, which are critical for our growth”.

Mannok, formerly the Quinn Group, has its headquarters in Derrylin in Co Fermanagh and manufactures construction products and building materials such as insulation, blocks, roof tiles, cement and precast concrete products.

It has manufacturing facilities both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and a distribution network that also extends into Britain.

It was rebranded from Quinn Industrial Holdings to Mannok in 2020.

The name ‘Mannok’ comes from Fear Manach, the Irish for Fermanagh, where the company is based.

In 2008, Seán Quinn had amassed a fortune worth more than €4.7 billion through his Quinn Group business ventures that spanned multiple industries, particularly insurance.

In 2011, Quinn went bankrupt when the Quinn Group experienced massive losses after the firm gambled on shares in Anglo Irish Bank through a financial instrument called contracts for differences (CFDs).  

The Quinn Group was then renamed Aventas in 2013, but a year later was again renamed as Quinn Industrial Holdings (QIH).

This followed the company being bought out of receivership by a local consortium of businessmen, which included eight former senior executives of Quinn Group.

Quinn then returned as a consultant to QIH but left in 2016.

In a statement at the time, Quinn said there had been “commercial differences” between himself and the stakeholders.