Category: Business

Turkish E-Commerce Raises $26 Million From Kleiner Perkins

Nope, it’s not China or India. It’s Turkey.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, best known for investing in Google, Amazon, Twitter and Zynga, has made a bet on Turkey as the next big market with its first major investment there.

The receiving company — Trendyol.com, an e-commerce site based in Istanbul — is announcing today that it has raised $26 million from Kleiner Perkins and Tiger Global.

Trendyol is similar to other flash sales sites in the U.S., such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La, and Ideeli. The site sends out daily emails offering a heavily discounted selection of clothes. Consumers have a limited amount of time to purchase the items before the sale expires or quantities run out.

The company was founded by Demet Mutlu, a 29-year-old dropout from Harvard Business School — she is now running the company with about 350 employees.

Kleiner partner Aileen Lee said a combination of a hardworking executive team, the company’s phenomenal growth, and Turkey’s increasingly attractive market opportunity led to the investment. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to introduce e-commerce to a market that doesn’t have a strong brick-and-mortar environment.

Check out some of these facts:

* Turkey has 35 million Internet users, representing the third largest Web market in Europe.

* Turkey is a socially engaged country, ranking fifth-highest for Facebook usage globally; eighth for Twitter and first for FriendFeed.

* Turkey has a high credit card penetration rate of about 60 percent with 46 million credit cards.

* In the past 16 months, Trendyol has signed up four million members, translating into one out of every nine Turkish Internet users.

“When you go there and walk around the company, it looks like any other hypergrowth Silicon Valley start-up,” Lee said. “Trendyol has an incredible dedication to customer service and is driven by metrics and analytics. It has a good sense for what to outsource and what to keep in-house, and is building the brand.”

She said Trendyol has also been good at leveraging social media, including a store inside Facebook that allows users to make purchases without leaving the site.

The funding will be used for new initiatives, such as building out the company’s customer service team, increasing its membership, and potentially moving into new geographies. Trendyol.com has secured more than $50 million in total financing since the site launched in March 2010.

via Turkish E-Commerce Raises $26 Million From Kleiner Perkins – Tricia Duryee – Commerce – AllThingsD.

August 11, 2011
Taxi of Tomorrow Blahs

The spatial identity of a city is not limited to its buildings. Urban architecture is often complemented by or competes with majestic feats of engineering or lush, elegant landscaping– universally recognizable bridges and parks (such as Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or Millennium Park in Chicago) often become the defining landmark of a city.

In New York, the competing, ubiquitous icon is the bright yellow cab. With a supporting (if not starring) role in many New York photographs and movies, the taxi is embedded in the identity and culture of New York. In expansive lobbies and through large windows, fine design is admired by looking out onto the surrounding streets. From the tallest, most famous buildings, sightseers peer over the railings to admire the tiny taxi cabs on the avenues below. The architecture of New York is embedded in its street life, of which taxis are often the stars.

After the jump: the new taxi is a missed opportunity.

A year ago, big news broke that the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) had begun soliciting new designs for the yellow cab. Any search to revamp an icon is challenging; there are the nostalgists, the stalwarts, the radicals—when even small projects take place, there is often immediate outcry and disproportional protest. But the RFP for a new taxi design seemed to have everyone singing a different tune.

The New York Times exuberantly called it ““an opportunity to shape the urban landscape.” Once they had selected three finalists, the TLC (yes, like the 1990s girl group) asked the public to vote for its favorite design on a friendly interactive website. Iconic reinvention at its best!

Quickly, a model by the Turkish company Karsan became the popular frontrunner, gaining the support of politicians and the public alike. The Karsan cab (or Kab, as they called it) featured a skylight roof, kick seats, and wheelchair ramps. And in a major boost to New York’s sagging manufacturing industry, Karsan said the cars would be produced locally, in Brooklyn. Cabs for New York, made in New York. The proposal seemed perfect!

Yesterday, the TLC put an end to any hopes that the new yellow cab will become an icon. Despite overwhelming public support for the Karsan design, they have instead chosen a bland Ford model as the “Taxi of Tomorrow.” The Ford Connect is already in use Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia, and its design is boxy and unremarkable

The chosen Taxi of Tomorrow is a bland Ford Connect. Image: Gothamist.

Sad as the outcome it for New York, this episode frames much larger issue: As cities across the globe continue to grow, they look for ways to make their features universally recognizable. Within this rethinking of urban form and identity, there is much opportunity to transform existing urban elements into icons.

via Architizer Blog » Blog Archive » Taxi of Tomorrow Blahs.

July 27, 2011
Hainan Airlines to invest in Turkish cargo carrier ACT

Hainan Airlines 737-800. Photo: By Rob Finlayson.

Haikou-based Hainan Airlines Group sealed a deal to invest in Istanbul-based cargo carrier ACT Airlines. HNA, which has made clear that it wants to invest abroad (ATW Daily News, July 19), didn’t reveal how much money it will put into ACT or how large its holding will be.

ACT was launched in 2004 and operates a fleet of four Airbus A300-B4 freighters. Its fleet is expected to expand to 10 aircraft in the next two years, aided in part by the HNA investment.

In October 2010, HNA invested in the Turkish MRO company myTECHNIC and has said it plans to increase its stake. It has been negotiating to invest in financially troubled Malev Hungarian Airlines and has expressed interest in a stake in Germany’s Hochtief Airport.

via Hainan Airlines to invest in Turkish cargo carrier ACT | ATWOnline.

July 27, 2011
Goldman to Acquire Aksa Stake in Turkey for $450 Million

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to buy 26.5 percent of Aksa Enerji Uretim AS, one of Turkey’s two biggest power producers, for about $450 million, driving a record gain in the utility’s shares.

Goldman Sachs will pay 5.05 liras ($2.94) a share to Aksa’s parent company, Kazanci Holding AS, which will invest the proceeds in power generation, Aksa Chairman Cemil Kazanci said today by telephone. “The price isn’t certain and could change at the closing of the transaction,” he said.

Turkey’s energy industry is luring international companies as electricity demand is set to grow by an average 6.3 percent over the next 20 years, Hasan Koktas, head of the energy-market regulator, said June 15. Italy’s Ansaldo STS SpA won a 640 million-euro ($919 million) order for an 865-megawatt plant this month. Austria’s Verbund AG and OMV AG, Germany’s RWE AG and U.S.-based AES Corp. have also bought power assets in Turkey.

Goldman Sachs loaned Kazanci Holding $192 million as part of the transaction, Kazanci said. The holding company pledged 43 percent of Aksa shares as collateral for the loan, which has a maturity of a year and one week, he said.

Goldman Sachs’s offer represents a 22 percent premium to Aksa’s volume-weighted average share price over the 20 days through July 22, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Aksa rose 33 kurus, or 8.7 percent, to 4.14 liras at the 5:30 p.m. close in Istanbul, the biggest one-day gain since the stock started trading in May 2010.

Debt Payments

Aksa expects the deal to close in September. Kazanci Holding will use a “large part” of the proceeds to pay its debts to Aksa, Zeynep Karaman, an analyst at BGC Partners Istanbul, said by telephone.

In April, Kazanci Holding applied to the Istanbul Stock Exchange to sell 68.9 million shares in Aksa, or an 11.9 percent stake, on the bourse. The stock slumped 13 percent in the following three months.

“I don’t think Kazanci has given up on its plan for a secondary share sale at Aksa, but this plan has put pressure on the stock price,” according to Karaman, who recommends buying Aksa shares. “Now that overhang seems to be going away.”

Aksa, based in Istanbul, has power-generation capacity in excess of 1,500 megawatts, Kazanci said, adding that it will “soon” rise to 2,000 megawatts. Competitor Enerjisa, a venture owned by Verbund and Turkey’s Haci Omer Sabanci Holding AS, has a capacity of 1,557 megawatts, according to its website.

Bloomberg

July 26, 2011
Turkey is doing much better as against 10 years ago

Robert Zoellick

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said Turkish economy is in a better shape when compared to 10 years ago.

World Bank Chief Robert Zoellick held a news conference in Istanbul to evaluate the items on his agenda, after having received by President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Expressing condolences to the families of terror victims, World Bank director Zoellick said Turkey is doing much better as against 10 years ago.

“If I were in Turkey 10 years ago, we would have been talking about Turkey’s relations with the European Union. But today, we are discussing its economic relations with Central Asia and Africa. Turkey has established a broad-based and international network. It has a stronger and more durable domestic economy,” he said.

Turkey is a developing country, therefore its current account deficit is understandable, Zoellick said, adding that as the World Bank they support the government’s efforts in this regard.

via News.Az – Turkey is doing much better as against 10 years ago – WB chief.

July 24, 2011
Istanbul’s Latest Hot Table

Among the world’s great kitchens, Turkish cooking may be more mauled than even Mexican when cooked off its home turf. Nearly every major city in the world has a mediocre kebab stand that is a sad substitute for the brilliantly regional cuisines of Turkey. This is why I always show up in Istanbul with a carefully plotted meal plan — the dearth of really good Turkish restaurants outside of Turkey means there are just so many dishes I don’t want to miss eating again before I go home.

Photographs by Orhan Cem CetinThe dining room at chef Didem Senol’s Istanbul restaurant Lokanta Maya.

Photographs by Orhan Cem CetinThe dining room at chef Didem Senol’s Istanbul restaurant Lokanta Maya.

Most of the places on my standing list, including Zubeyir Ocakbaþy (Bekar Sokak 28; 011-90-212-293-3951), Ciya Sofrasi (Caferaga Mah Guneslibache Sk. No.43; 011-90-261-330-3190) and Hunkar (Mim Kemal Öke Caddesi 21; 011-90-212-225-4665), are simple spots serving terrific traditional Turkish food. (Hunkar actually specializes in Ottoman cooking.). But since the city’s restaurant scene has boomed — a reflection of the thriving Turkish economy — several local chefs have opened up places that serve inventive contemporary Turkish cooking to sophisticated younger Istanbulers who want food that’s local but light and healthy and offered up in a stylish setting. Many of these new takes on the Turkish kitchen are unfortunately also pricey, tourist-oriented spots where you’re paying a premium for a view.

The white bean salad at Lokanta Maya.

A year ago, however, the chef Didem Senol, who studied at New York’s French Culinary Institute, opened Lokanta Maya (Kemankes Caddesi No.35/A; 011-90-212-252-6884), a strikingly good-looking contemporary Turkish table in the Karakoy neighborhood. It’s since become not only one of the hippest and most popular spots in town but a delicious template for a new style of Istanbul restaurant, one with an indigenous but modern menu, excellent service and seriously good food. Eager to try it on a recent trip, I could only score a seat at the service bar on a busy Friday night — putting me more or less in the staff’s way — but a terrific waiter nonetheless took the time to explain the entire menu. It’s an appealing mix of Turkish and eastern Mediterranean dishes mostly made with organic produce and showcasing Senol’s vast knowledge of regional Turkish cuisine and her passion for the cooking of the Aegean coast.

My meal began with Cypriot halloumi cheese grilled inside of grape leaves and served with a garden chutney of sliced scallions, crushed roasted hazelnuts, cucumber and tomato. Next, crispy golden zucchini fritters came cooked in hazelnut oil and served with minted yogurt dip. Both starters were excellent, and during the pause that proceeded my main course I sipped a pleasant Turkish Umurbey sauvignon blanc by the glass and watched the restaurant fill up with a handsome, mostly local crowd who filled the Danish-modern-inspired tables and eyeballed the wall covering of walnuts inside of chicken wire. When it arrived, my slow-roasted lamb was succulent, spoon tender and served on bed of rice pilaf bright with sumac berries, currants, Turkish cranberries and pine nuts.

Concluding with a mastic-gum pudding under a red-berry coulis, I couldn’t help but think that if the New York restaurateur Danny Meyer were to do a Turkish restaurant it would look and taste a lot like Lokanta Maya. I liked this place so much, in fact, that I wasn’t disappointed the following night when Turkish friends picked me up to take me to a wonderful new restaurant for dinner and, well, guess where I ended up? This time I got to try the caramelized sea bass with oranges that I’d been eyeing as a main course when the waiter suggested the lamb. As it turns out, both are superb.

via Eurofile | Istanbul’s Latest Hot Table – NYTimes.com.

July 23, 2011