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…“Entrepreneurship really means taking risks.”
Husnu Ozyegin, after receiving the Alumni Achievement Award from the Harvard Business School
Some are born rich, some manipulate their way to riches, while some climb up the hard way. Husnu Ozyegin happens to belong to that breed of billionaires who neither had a professional mentor to look up to nor family wealth ready to be inherited. But Ozyegin did inherit an invaluable asset from his grandfather who never went to college: the value of education. For many successful entrepreneurs, degrees from some of the most hallowed Western universities would be just stepping stones to the corporate world of riches and prosperity. On the contrary, Ozyegin dedicated himself to the true spirit of giving back to society by donating a considerable portion of his wealth to ensure quality education for the needy back in his home country.
Though a bright student, acquiring the cherished U.S. education was never a smooth ride for the young Ozyegin. After all, Turkey in the 1960s was a place very different from the modern day emerging market powerhouse that it is today. After graduating from a Turkish school, Ozyegin literally set sail for Canada with just $1,000 in his pocket from his father. From there, he took a Greyhound bus to the Oregon State University and enrolled in a civil engineering course. But soon after completing his BS in 1967, Ozyegin realized that his real interest was in business studies.
Still, obtaining the scholarship to earn that business degree turned out to be Ozyegin’s next big hurdle. In the end, he managed to make an impression on the Harvard admissions committee, securing a spot at the venerable university. The stint at the Harvard Business School, as Ozyegin would acknowledge while receiving the HBS Alumni Achievement Award in 2011, was a life-changing experience. Ozyegin lacked the mandatory work experience required by the school, but managed to compensate by taking up the management of Gallows Grill, a small burger joint housed within Gallatin Hall, a Harvard student residence complex. The assignment at the grill earned him enough money to repay his student loans, but more importantly, gave Ozyegin his first taste of entrepreneurialism, which later would steer him toward the building of his own business some years down the line.
“…I’m first generation, that gives me satisfaction,”
Husnu Ozyegin, quoted in The New York Times
In those days, any ambitious person from a country like Turkey would have liked to pursue a career in the famed land of opportunities. Still, after brief stints with IBM and Arthur D. Little, Ozyegin journeyed back in 1972 to his homeland to complete the mandatory military service. Moving on, Turkish corporates were only too happy to open their doors to the Harvard MBA graduate. Ozyegin steadily rose through the ranks of several Turkish banks before he took charge at Yapi Kredi Bank in 1985, where he proved his mettle by leading the bank to a profit over the next two years.
For Ozyegin, the experience of turning around Yapi Kredi Bank germinated the idea to start one on his own. However, the initial capital was hard to come by and the budding entrepreneur had to sell both his homes and borrow $3 million to get started. Like any start-up business, Finansbank had modest beginnings, offering corporate banking services mostly to family-owned Turkish businesses. The bank had a roller-coaster ride, expanding during the years of Turkey’s economic growth, but also experiencing some really close shaves in 1994 and 2001, as Turkish markets plunged. Under Ozyegin’s stewardship, the bank became one of the largest private banks in Turkey. Finansbank also spread its wings to some 10 countries, adding about 200 branches.
Ozyegin’s foray into the banking sector was a timely and smart business move. Over the two decades or so after he established the mid-tier corporate bank, Turkey would emerge as one of the most attractive banking sectors in South Eastern Europe. Economic growth hovered around 7% during 2005-2006, making the market very attractive for foreign players. Naturally, Turkey’s geographic proximity and its cultural affinity with Europe brought the country onto the radar screen of some of the big European banks, which were struggling to expand in their home markets.
At this juncture, Ozyegin realized that the time was ripe for him to cash in on the foreign interest in the domestic banking sector. So in 2006, Ozyegin sold his 49% stake in Finansbank to the National Bank of Greece for $2.7 billion. The sale catapulted Ozyegin into the big league of Turkish billionaires and also made him one among the first crop of self-made, first-generation entrepreneurs in the country. The rest, as they, is history.
Flush with cash from the stake sale in Finansbank, Ozyegin set his sights on high-demand industries such as real estate, energy, and retail over the second half of the last decade. Ozyegin’s real estate ventures included the building of condos and shopping centers across the main business districts of Turkey. The Turkish entrepreneur also ventured into retail business in the interim, and made some money by selling the supermarket chain Gima to French retailer Carrefour in 2005. Ozyegin has also invested in Turkey’s wind power sector.
After a brief interval, Ozyegin surprised industry watchers with his triumphant return to the Turkish banking sector in 2010, this time in his new avatar as an investor. His Fiba Holding group seized the opportunity to gobble up the Turkish unit of the troubled Banco Comercial Portugues SA for $82 million. With 76 companies in 12 countries under his Fiba Group umbrella, amassing total assets of about $18 billion, Ozyegin can rightfully make his claim to be the master of all he has surveyed.
Anyone with a personal wealth estimated at about $3 billion would be content to rest on his laurels, particularly when one is in his late sixties. But Ozyegin had other ideas. What makes Ozyegin stand out from other emerging market billionaires is that he brings as much passion to his philanthropic activities as he brings to his business deals. From 2000 onwards, Ozyegin has spent a whopping $50 million of his hard-earned money to build 36 primary schools and dormitories for girls in some of the poorest regions of Turkey. Ozyegin’s focus on education is not surprising. Clearly, he knows what difference it can make to a young boy from a modest background.
Image Credit: Susan Young, Harvard Business School
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