Doğuş Holding

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Doğuş Holding (Doğuş Grubu) is one of the top three largest private-sector conglomerates in Turkey, with a portfolio of 25 companies that cross industry verticals, including Turkey's largest bank, Garanti Bank, as well as high-end Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen dealerships, retail and food stores, construction companies, and tourism businesses.

1 Background
2 Characteristics and Structure
- 2.1 Dogus Construction Group
3 Notes
4 External links

[edit] Background

Its foundations originally laid in 1951 when Mr. Ayhan Şahenk made his first investments in the construction sector and transformed Dogus Insaat into a leading builder of Turkish roads, ports and hospitals. The Doğuş Construction and Trade Ltd. Company was founded June 17, 1966, the same year Antur Tourism, Inc. was founded and Club Alantur in Alanya was acquired. He diversified into banking in the late 1970s. That is now the group's core business, accounting for 70 percent of the family's USD$ 3.6 billion fortune. But Sahenk kept expanding. While Turkey evolved from a state-controlled economy toward market capitalism in the 1980s, he branched into importing and joint ventures in automotive, tourism and food, with giants like Volkswagen, Sheraton and ConAgra.

In 1989 Ayhan Şahenk's son, Ferit Şahenk, returned to Istanbul with a bachelor's degree in marketing from Boston College. His father sent him to apprentice at Dogus' Garanti Bank. After eight years he moved to the holding company and has kept adding pieces. Beginning in 1998 he acquired two food retail chains and operated NTV, funding the expansion by selling part of the group's Garanti Bank to the public. Understanding that top talent is essential to running a diverse group, he also created a recruitment division, Humanitas. Revenues for 1999 at Dogus Group hit USD$ 5.7 billion.^[1] In April 2001 Ferit took over Dogus after his father Ayhan Sahenk died at the age of 72. He relinquished some control of the Garanti Bank, selling a quarter of the country's third largest bank to General Electric for $1.6 billion in 2004, which was regarded as an important step towards greater liberalization in the Turkish banking sector, which had been severely affected by the 2001 economic crisis. He also runs Turkish media properties capturing more than 10 percent of country's advertising market.^[2]

[edit] Characteristics and Structure

The Doğuş Group adheres to a customer-focused and productivity-centered management style while also acting with social consciousness in its determination to generate added value. The Doğuş Group is active in over 5 sectors, including finance, automotive, construction, tourism and media.

With over 18,000 employees serving more than 5 million customers, the Groups objective is to use human resources and its superior technological capital to create brand value that will ensure customer loyalty and regional growth through global cooperation. Providing its services based upon the principles of customer satisfaction and trust, the Doğuş Group has created and developed respected brands on a world scale and, by adapting to developments in the world, continues to be on the vanguard of change in Turkey.

[edit] Dogus Construction Group

Part of the Doğuş Group, the Doğuş Construction Group is one of Turkey's largest construction companies and is well known around the world for having a hand in everything from giant hydroelectric power plants to tunnels to consulting services. The company is best known in Europe for its highway and dam projects and completed the main route of the Trans-European Motorway that connects Turkey to Europe.^[3]