From a Single-Room Office to a Powerful Holding Company

Every large corporation has a history and Alarko is no exception. Starting in an one-room office in Karakoy's Vefai Han in 1954, founding partners Ishak Alaton and Uzeyir Garih established a place for Alarko in Turkey's industrial sector. Established as a private partnership with capital of TL 20,000, Alarko started out providing apartment heating units and contracting in the heating industry. In 1956, it opened a small workshop on Tophane Avenue and then its first small factory in the Rami area. Among the most important jobs it completed in those years were the air-conditioning systems for the Central Bank's Banknote Printing Plant and Sumerbank's Malatya Textile Factory annex using domestic materials exclusively. These were followed by the installation of many other air-conditioning systems. Alarko raised its capital from TL 80,000 to TL 300,000 and, in 1962, to TL 2,500,000 as it demonstrated healthy growth, parallel organizational abilities and rapid technical growth. It had become a leading company in its sector and in 1963, it became a share company with capital of TL 3,500,000.

Using credit from the Turkish Industrial Development Bank, Alarko proceeded to build a factory in Istanbul in which it started to manufacture equipment for heating, air-conditioning, pumping, etc. Alarko Inc, the first enterprise in Turkey to construct industrial plants, was transformed into a public holding company in 1973 with capital of TL 65,000,000. From one room and two people in 1954, today the Alarko Group of Companies is one of Turkey's leading enterprises with more than 3,000 engineers, technicians, white collar personnel and workers.

The Group is active in many different fields of investment over a wide range of interests such as manufacturing, trading, engineering and contracting, tourism, land development, construction, energy and seafood.