Koç Holding sets eyes on overseas, heralding ambitious Far East plans

Sefer Levent DURBAN, South Africa

Koç Holding chairman Mustafa Koç.

Turkey’s largest conglomerate Koç Holding has still yet to reach its global targets, the group’s chairman has said, heralding new overseas investment plans, potentially in the Far East.

“As the group, we are not at the place we desire to be at in the global game,” Koç Holding Chairman Mustafa Koç told daily Hürriyet in the South African city of Durban.

Koç revealed the direction the holding wants to go toward by first speaking about how the group’s home appliance manufacturer Arçelik had grown across Africa through its South African brand Defy, and is now considering expanding over four continents with new investments.

After being acquired by Arçelik in 2011, Defy has attained leadership in the South African market, boosting overseas exports immensely over the past three years.

However, this success is not enough to achieve the group’s international targets, according to Koç, who signaled the group will announce new alliances abroad.

To support his point, the chairman holds up another large Turkish conglomerate, Yıldız Holding, which recently marked a landmark deal acquisition in taking over British snacks maker United Biscuits, as an example.

“What Ülker did is an extraordinary job … I didn’t know United Biscuits was so big. I already wrote a letter and congratulated Mr. Murat [Ülker],” Koç said.

The chairman gave signals that his group will enter a new and similar large-scale business venture.

“We need to enter a business market in which we own our know-how and don’t have a foreign partner or a brand field. We should also be open to these kinds of initiatives in changing paradigms. We are working on these ventures,” he stated.

Within this respect, Koç said the group will have a “surprise” in 2015, refusing to elaborate further as to not spoil the “magic” of the news.

He only gave an indication by saying, “We will give the good news about the Far East later.”

When asked if the group’s real objective is raising the weight of overseas business within the group’s income to make it surpass domestic businesses, Koç gave a clear “Yes.”

“We are setting the bar high to be where we want to be at,” he said.