Ahmet Burak ErdoÄŸan (born 4 July 1979) is a Turkish businessman, the owner of MB Denizcilik, and the eldest son of
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...
, the President of Turkey.
Personal life
Ahmet Burak ErdoÄŸan was born in Istanbul on 4 July 1979, the son of
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the List of presidents of Turkey, 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Lis ...
and his wife
Emine ErdoÄŸan
Emine ErdoÄŸan (; ; born 16 February 1955) is the current first lady of Turkey, and the wife of Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan.
Family and education Early life
Emine Erdoğa, was born as Cemal and Hayriye Gülbaran’s fifth child and only daug ...
, and educated at
Ä°mam Hatip school
In Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in West ...
.
He has a bachelor's degree from
Istanbul Bilgi University
Istanbul Bilgi University ( tr, Ä°stanbul Bilgi Ãœniversitesi), officially established in 1996, is a private university located in Istanbul, Turkey.
The university has 4 campuses centrally-located in Istanbul namely SantralIstanbul, KuÅŸtepe, Do ...
.
As with all his siblings, his higher education was paid for by
Remzi Gür, a Turkish textile entrepreneur and friend of the Erdoğan family.
In 1998, the Turkish classical music singer
Sevim Tanürek died in Istanbul after a period in intensive care after being hit by a car driven by Erdoğan, who reportedly did not have a driving licence and fled the scene.
ErdoÄŸan ultimately received no punishment.
Following the accident involving Tanürek, he left Turkey to study economics in London.
In 2001, ErdoÄŸan married Sema Ketenci, the daughter of Osman Ketenci.
Career
He bought a shipping company together with Mustafa ErdoÄŸan and Ziya Ä°lgen in 2006 and they named it Bumerz.
In 2007 Erdoğan co-founded the shipping company MB Denizcilik together with Mecit Çetinkaya,
who as well owns the sea freight company Manta Denizcilik.
In November 2013, MB bought a sixth ship, ''Pretty'', built in China for over $20 million and with a capacity of 91,000 tons, to add to the existing five ships, ''Safran 1'', ''Sakarya'', ''G. Ä°nebolu'', ''Cihan'' and ''Bosna'' that it owns. The acquisition of ''Pretty'' almost doubled the company's shipping capacity.
In 2013, ''
Ynetnews
Ynet (stylized as ynet) is one of the major Israeli news and general-content websites, and is the online outlet for the '' Yedioth Ahronot'' newspaper. However, most of Ynet's content is original work, published exclusively on the website and wri ...
'' reported that one of MB's ships, 95-metre ''Safran-1'' had travelled several times between Turkish and Israeli ports despite the poor relations between the two countries, and that in the Turkish Parliament, opposition MPs had asked his father: "Has your son been exempted from the trade embargo against Israel? Is it ethical? What share of the volume of trade with Israel did the ship owned by your son take?" ''Ynetnews'' noted that no formal trade embargo had existed at the time, except for arms sales.
In 2015, ''
Aydınlık'' reported that Erdoğan now owned 99% of MB (with Çetinkaya owning the other 1%) and that MB owned tankers worth US$80 million.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Erdogan, Ahmet Burak
1979 births
Living people
Ahmet Burak
Imam Hatip school alumni
Turkish people of Georgian descent
Turkish people of Arab descent
Businesspeople in shipping
Children of national leaders
Businesspeople from Istanbul