Doğuş Group

Doğuş Group

Type	Private
Industry	Finance/Corporate
Founded	1951
Founder	Ayhan Şahenk
Headquarters	Istanbul, Turkey
Key people	Ferit Şahenk
Number of employees	40,000+
Website	www.dogusgrubu.com.tr

Doğuş Holding A.Ş. (Doğuş Group) is one of the largest private-sector conglomerates in Turkey, with a portfolio of 250 companies in 7 industries, including high-end Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen dealerships, retail stores, restaurants, cafes, construction companies, radio stations, TV channels and tourism businesses. The group used to own one of Turkey's largest banks, Garanti Bank, now part of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

Background

Its foundations were originally laid in 1951 when Ayhan Şahenk made his first investments in the construction sector and transformed Doğuş Insaat into a leading builder of Turkish roads, ports and hospitals. Doğuş Construction was founded June 17, 1966, the same year Antur Tourism was founded and Club Alantur in Alanya was acquired. He diversified into banking in the late 1970s. The Sahenk family 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. 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. In 1999, annual revenue of Dogus Group hit USD$5.7 billion.^[1] In April 2001 Ferit took over Doğuş after his father Ayhan Şahenk 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]

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 more than 5 sectors, including finance, automotive, construction, tourism and media.

With over 35,000 employees serving more than 5 million customers, the Group's 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.

In 2018, in the course of the Turkish currency and debt crisis, 2018, Dogus Holding asked its lenders for a debt restructuring. Dogus’ outstanding loans stood at the equivalent of 23.5 billion Turkish lira ($5.81 billion) at the end 2017, up 11 percent from the year before.^[3]

List of Group Companies

Notes

External links

• Doğuş Group Official Website