Six Turkish insurers and pension fund companies will form the country's largest insurance and pensions company, wrote Middle East Insurance Review here.

According to the quoted source, HALK Sigorta, GUNES Sigorta, ZIRAAT Sigorta, HALK Hayat ve Emeklilik, ZIRAAT Hayat ve Emeklilik and VAKIF Emeklilik ve Hayat - owned by the Turkish State through The Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF) have been placed under the umbrella of the TURKEY Insurance Joint Stock Co in order to form the biggest insurance & pensions company.

TWF acquired all shares of public insurance companies to consolidate them under a single roof. The consolidation was a project of the Treasury and Finance Ministry which was announced in December to raise the country's domestic savings rate and grow the non-banking financial services sector.

"The state-owned insurance and pensions companies complement each other", said President ERDOGAN quoted by Middle East Insurance Review. Their merger "will bring a new dynamism to the insurance sector that will increase the efficiency of companies and reduce costs".

Middle East Insurance Review wrote that TURKEY Insurance Joint Stock Company was registered with the Istanbul Trade Registry Office last month.

According to the half-year figures recently published by the local professional association, the combined market share of the six merged insurers amounted to about 17% (GWP of EUR 890 million). At June 30th, the largest insurers in the country were ANADOLU Sigorta (9.54%, EUR 499 million) followed by ALLIANZ Sigorta (9.49%, EUR 496 million).

Turkey Wealth Fund (TWF) is a sovereign wealth fund founded in August 2016 owned by Government of Turkey. TWF holds all or part of the shares of several Turkish companies including flag carrier TURKISH Airlines, telecommunications giant TURK Telekom, state lenders ZIRAAT Bankasi and HALKBANK, oil company TURKISH Petroleum and stock market BORSA Istanbul. The fund is operated with "Strategic Investment Plan", which was approved by the Cabinet. On September 12th, 2018, the TWF leadership was changed to Recep Tayyip ERDOGAN as its Chairman and Berat ALBAYRAK, his son in law and Minister of Treasury and Finance, as its Deputy Chairman.