Soma Holding chairman's estates on sale over debt default

Turkey's Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) has opened to sale 14 immovable properties worth some 33 million Turkish Liras belonging to Soma Holding Chairman Alp Gürkan, who has failed to pay installments on his 34-million-lira debt to his workers since October 2015. Gürkan operated the controversial Soma mine during the 2014 disaster which claimed the lives of 301 miners. 

The Soma Coal Mine Company, which operated the mine in the Soma district of the Aegean province of Manisa, signed a protocol with Turkey's Mine Workers' Union on June 2015 and agreed to pay the severance and notice pay of a total 2,704 workers whose labor contracts were canceled. 

According to the protocol, Gürkan was supposed to start paying his debt of over 34 million liras in 23 installments in October 2015. However, the payments had not been initiated, despite a seven-month delay. 
The default on debts triggered the TMSF to open Gürkan's 14 immovable properties to sale, and the first tender is set to take place on May 3. 

The total value of Gürkan's real estate properties amount to some 33 million liras, over a million short of his total debt of 34.195 million liras. 

Gürkan has three condos in Istanbul's Ortaköy neighborhood, all with views of the Bosphorus, which are worth nearly 19 million liras. The chairman also has two apartments in Istanbul's Spine Tower worth nearly 4 million liras in addition to a 6.5 million-lira real estate in Rumelihisar?, on the coast of the Bosphorus, among others. 

Gürkan became a controversial figure following the mining disaster in Soma, which began as a fire erupted in the mine at a depth of 150 meters, on May 13, 2014. The accident claimed 301 lives, though more than 780 miners were inside the mine when the...