The United Kingdom’s export credit agency said on October 7 that it will support approximately £100.5 million in financing tied to Ciner Glass’s new bottle plant in Belgium, days after Turkish authorities jailed the company’s chief executive pending trial in a money laundering investigation.
UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department that provides state-backed guarantees to help overseas buyers purchase goods and services from UK suppliers, listed the support as a Category B project for Ciner Glass Belgium N.V. and identified Tecoglas Limited of Sheffield as the exporter. The agency described the package as export-credit support, not a cash grant or direct government loan.
The notice set UKEF’s maximum liability at approximately £100.5 million and named BNP Paribas as mandated lead arranger, with KBC, MUFG, DenizBank AG, Deutsche Bank, Bank ABC and DHB among commercial lenders. Other export credit agencies in the deal include Italy’s SACE and Switzerland’s SERV, with additional backing from the Gigarant program of Belgium’s Flemish government.
The UKEF package has sparked backlash in Wales because Ciner previously scrapped a long-promised glass plant in Ebbw Vale that officials said would create roughly 600–650 jobs.
Planning permission for the Welsh factory was granted in 2022, but the company abandoned the £390 million scheme in July 2025, citing market conditions and rising costs.
Local leaders later discussed the collapse at a council meeting and stressed the decision was Ciner’s, not the authority’s, as residents voiced frustration over lost hopes of employment.
The UK is now backing a Ciner facility in Lommel, Belgium, while the Welsh site remains without the promised jobs.
Ciner Glass announced on August 4 that it had signed €504 million in project financing for the Lommel facility, which will produce container glass for the Belgian, Dutch and German markets. Dentons, which advised the borrower, also publicized the financing later in August.
The timing attracted attention because İstanbul prosecutors last week placed Ciner Glass CEO Gökhan Şen and Atilla Ciner, the son of conglomerate founder Turgay Ciner, under arrest pending trial in a probe centered on the 2024 sale of Ciner media assets to Can Holding. A separate detention order was issued earlier for Turgay Ciner.
The UK notice pertains to a Belgian subsidiary and the supply and installation of furnaces and related equipment, and it states that UKEF decided to proceed after its environmental and social due diligence.
On September 28 prosecutors ordered the detention of Turgay Ciner, who is reportedly in London now, and the seizure of some group companies as part of the expanding probe into Can Holding, which bought the Habertürk TV and Show TV stations from Ciner in 2024. On October 1 Şen and Atilla Ciner were jailed pending trial.