Imperial partners with MEX as they take aim at African market

Imperial has entered into a partnership with Turkish freight forwarder M Ekspres (MEX), which will see the creation of a new multimodal freight management business.

The business will be based in Istanbul and will provide air and ocean import and export forwarding services. In addition, it plans to leverage the fast-growing range of global destinations served from Istanbul’s new airport, as a gateway for traffic to the African continent.

MEX was established in 2009 as an international courier company by Turkish forwarding executives Mehmet Baykut and Oktay Baykut, who had previously built the country’s second-largest IATA forwarder which was subsequently sold to Toll Global Forwarding.

Imperial Logistics International chief executive Hakan Bicil said: “Imperial’s strategy involves establishing a global air and ocean freight management business based in Europe, to complement our logistics services offering, and maximise the potential of existing client and carrier relationships to generate revenue growth.

“Our ambition is to become the chosen gateway to Africa, creating a competitive differentiator through technology and business model innovation. This also requires a global network to connect us with key world markets. It’s a coalition of complementary strengths, based in a country whose economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and which shows huge potential.

Baykut added: “We are delighted to enter into this strategic partnership with Imperial, which brings together our own unparalleled local market knowledge and their blue-chip multi-national customer base and enormous strength in key African markets.”