Çalık Holding A.Ş is a Turkish

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 conglomerate

Conglomerate (company)

A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...

 based in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, active in the sectors of textiles, energy, construction, finance, logistics and media. Through its ventures in and outside of Turkey, Çalık employs a total of 19,000 people (December 2008). The CEO of Çalık Holding, Berat Albayrak. Albayrak is the son-in-law of Turkey's Prime Minister Erdoğan . Albayrak has been with the company since 1999.

The leading companies of the group are GAP Güneydoğu Tekstil, Çalık Enerji

Çalik Enerji

Çalik Enerji is a Turkish energy company of the Çalık Holding, which was established in 1998. The main areas of operations include:* oil and gas exploration, production, transportation, and distribution;...

, GAP İnşaat, Çalıkbank, and GAP Pazarlama.

Since 2008 it also owns the newspaper Sabah

Sabah (newspaper)

Sabah is a popular Turkish daily newspaper, with a circulation of around 330,000 as of 2011. Its name means "morning" in the Turkish language originating from Arabic...

and TV station ATV, which it acquired for $1.1bn. The sale aroused substantial controversy in Turkey, not least because it was partially financed by $750m of loans from two state banks, VakıfBank

VakifBank

VakıfBank is the fifth largest bank in Turkey with its $46 billion in assets as of December 31, 2009. The company offers some of the largest services in Turkey, and operates 610 branches domestically...

 and Halkbank, and was sold for the minimum price, with Çalık the sole bidder. A Turkish law limiting foreign ownership to 25% of media assets is believed to have contributed. In January 2009 the acquisition of Sabah-ATV contributed to ratings agency Fitch

Fitch

- Places :* Fitch, North Carolina* Fitch's Covered Bridge, Delhi, New York* Fitch H. Beach Airport, an airport at Charlotte, Michigan, USA* Fitch Township, Ohio* Mount Fitch, in Massachusetts, on the Appalachian Trail* Fitchburg, Massachusetts...

's downgrade of Çalık's credit rating.

History

The Çalık family entered the textile industry around 1930. In 1980 the family founded Ortadoğu Tekstil Tic. ve San A.Ş, which was to be the basis for the present-day Çalık conglomerate

Conglomerate (company)

A conglomerate is a combination of two or more corporations engaged in entirely different businesses that fall under one corporate structure , usually involving a parent company and several subsidiaries. Often, a conglomerate is a multi-industry company...

. Çalık Holding was founded in 1997 by Ahmet Çalık, who remains the Chairman.