Rolls Royce : and Kale Group create defence aero engine joint venture

Monday, 8 May 2017

Rolls-Royce and Kale Group, a major partner in global and national defence and aerospace industries, have announced the formation of a joint venture company to target aero engine opportunities in Turkey.

Kale Group will own 51 per cent and Rolls-Royce 49 per cent of the joint venture, which aims to develop aircraft engines for Turkey, initially targeting the TF-X National Fighter Jet Project. The agreement was signed at a ceremony in Istanbul today attended by Osman Okyay, Deputy CEO of Kale Group and Chris Cholerton, Rolls-Royce, President - Defence Aerospace.

Osman Okyay said: 'Today we are very pleased and proud to be uniting our energy with one of the biggest jet engine makers of the world. This partnership is a milestone in the development of the aerospace and defence industries of Turkey.'

Chris Cholerton said: 'We are delighted to announce this new Joint Venture and to have the opportunity to work together with Kale to develop the national engine for TF-X.'

Kale Group is the contractor for the Turbojet engine development project, a milestone in Turkey's aim to produce domestic aircraft engines.

The establishment of the joint venture is subject to the usual legal approvals.

About Kale Group

• Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, Kale Group ranks among the largest industrial conglomerates in Turkey. Today, Kale Group owns 17 companies with more than 5,000 employees and US$1 billion annual sales.

• Kale Group entered the defence and aerospace industry in 1987 and is a tier one supplier for many global defence and aerospace companies - including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Airbus - and is a leading supplier to many important international programmes, including the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) project.

• Kale is a major partner in Turkey's defence and aerospace industries, participating in Turkey's first National Infantry Rifle and Turbojet engine.

About Rolls-Royce Holdings plc

1. Rolls-Royce's vision is to be the market-leader in high performance power systems where our engineering expertise, global reach and deep industry knowledge deliver outstanding customer relationships and solutions. We operate across five businesses: Civil Aerospace, Defence Aerospace, Marine, Nuclear and Power Systems.
2. Rolls-Royce has customers in more than 150 countries, comprising more than 400 airlines and leasing customers, 160 armed forces, 4,000 marine customers including 70 navies, and more than 5,000 power and nuclear customers.
3. We have three common themes across all our businesses:
   • Investing in and developing engineering excellence
   • Driving a manufacturing and supply chain transformation which will embed operational excellence in lean, lower-cost facilities and processes
   • Leveraging our installed base, product knowledge and engineering capabilities to provide customers with outstanding service through which we can capture aftermarket value long into the future.
4. Annual underlying revenue was £13.8 billion in 2016, around half of which came from the provision of aftermarket services. The firm and announced order book stood at £80 billion at the end of 2016.
5. In 2016, Rolls-Royce invested £1.3 billion on research and development. We also support a global network of 31 University Technology Centres, which position Rolls-Royce engineers at the forefront of scientific research.
6. Rolls-Royce employs almost 50,000 people in 50 countries. More than 16,500 of these are engineers.
7. The Group has a strong commitment to apprentice and graduate recruitment and to further developing employee skills. In 2016 we recruited 274 graduates and 327 apprentices through our worldwide training programmes.

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