NEWS

Yıldız Holding which has increased its number of employees from 30 thousand to 36 thousand, plans 5 thousand new hires and a growth in double digits for 2013.
The press meeting in which Yıldız Holding’s 2012 figures and 2013 goals were disclosed to the public was held at the holding headquarters in Çamlıca on Wednesday March 27, 2013. At the meeting, which was held in the conference room that is home to some of Yıldız Holding’s most precious works of art, Yıldız Holding’s 2012 gross sales revenue was disclosed as 12.4 billion TL. The Holding’s 2011 gross sales were 11.5 billion TL. The Holding increased sales from international operations by 19% from 2.3 billion TL to 2.8 billion TL and increased its operation profit by 64% from 359 million TL to 587 million TL.

With 6 thousand new hires the workforce increased to 36 thousand 
At the meeting, Yıldız Holding Board of Directors Deputy Chairman Ali Ülker especially emphasized the developments concerning employment. Ülker explained that Yıldız Holding has made an investment of over 350 million TL and added that along with the investments 6 thousand new employees were taken on. Thus, as Ülker explained, the total number of employees has reached 36 thousand, with the employees in international operations reaching 7,500, over one thousand of which are in Japan alone. Ülker, who also emphasized that they are careful about providing employment opportunities to new graduates, added “1,350 of the hires for last year were new graduates. Young people are important to us. We believe in the importance of carrying the ideas of young employees to the senior level management. This is why we have started work under the title of Youth Platform. With this platform we not only increase the cooperation between employees, we also utilize the ideas and suggestions of the ‘Y’ generation who comprise an important portion of our consumer profile. We have also started a similar platform for our women employees”. 

Ali Ülker, who pointed out that Yıldız Holding is a company that constantly listens carefully to its consumers and customers and renews its organization accordingly, continued with the following: “In the previous year we got feedback from 85 thousand consumers through 260 surveys. With these surveys we did one on one interviews with 5 thousand of our consumers, product tastings with 10 thousand consumers and in nearly 8 thousand locations we checked on our product accessibility. In addition, in our sales companies over 650 of our employees interviewed nearly 130 thousand customers in 50 weeks. We call these “Gez, Oturma Yerinde Artık (GOYA)” (Make Visits Don’t Just Sit). Everyone from the Chairman of the Board to the Senior Level Managers is doing GOYA and we are taking rapid action in a variety of different fields from products to pricing, from sales organizations to marketing. For example, after the zeroes were dropped from the Turkish Lira, GOYAs made it possible for the organizations to adjust prices according to change to prepare special packages for convenience stores.”

Contributions to sustainable growth on every platform
Ülker, who indicated that another of Yıldız Holding’s strategic priorities is sustainable growth and resource acquisition, said that important steps had been taken in this direction in the previous year. Ülker emphasized that one of the founding links of sustainable growth is sustainable raw materials provision, and said “Other than some products like cocoa that cannot be supplied by Türkiye, we supply a major portion of our needs from our domestic market. This means adding value to the lives of hundreds of thousands of producers. Last year we joined the World Cocoa Foundation - WCF. Thus we not only provide support for sustainable raw materials supply in Türkiye but also in the world”.

As explained by Ülker, another link of the sustainable growth is environmental sustainability and throughout the holding in general, 14.1 million TL was invested last year in the environment. Ülker noted that due to the restructuring that took place in the sales and distribution networks, nearly 2 thousand vehicles had been removed from traffic and added that “As a result of efficient energy use and conservation work, a savings of 92.3 million kW/hour was achieved and a carbon emission equivalent to 63.7 thousand tons was prevented. This amount corresponds to the electrical consumption of 33 thousand families and provided for the installation requirement of a 10 MW/hour thermal plant. As a result of efforts being carried out to reduce the consumption of natural resources, a savings of 200 million liters of water (equivalent to the yearly water consumption of 4 thousand people) was achieved.

Food and garden waste is being turned into fertilizer 
Ülker reminded that after the green building work that has been continuing for two years, the Yıldız Holding campus has been given the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certificate by the US Green Building Council in the US, “Actually it is even harder for existing buildings to get the LEED certificate. In order to get the certificate everything from the building property to access, from water efficiency to energy productivity, from the materials and resources used to the quality of life inside, everything has to be reassessed. The Yıldız Holding campus became the third building in Türkiye to earn the LEED Green Building Certificate in the category of existing buildings. Now the waste that comes from the cafeteria and grounds is used to produce fertilizer which is then used in landscaping”.

Another important investment made last year in the field of the environment, as pointed out by Ülker, was the anaerobic treatment and biogas facility that was opened in the Ak Gıda Pamukova factory. With a nearly 8 million TL investment, Türkiye’s newest facility in terms of technology was established. At this facility the factory wastes are treated to produce 1.4 MW/hour of energy and biogas which could provide 2,700 households with natural gas and nearly 3,800 households with electricity. Ülker, who pointed out that this is equivalent to planting nearly 500 thousand trees, also emphasized that greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by 9.8 thousand tons yearly.

We move forward with Sabri Ülker’s sensitive approach to the environment 
Ali Ülker, who emphasized that all efforts were carried out with the goal of carrying on the environmentally sensitive approach of Yıldız Holding’s late founder Sabri Ülker, added: “Mr. Sabri Ülker had adopted the words “Taking care of our soil, water and environment is taking care of our country” as his motto and instilled this in us as well. Now, in order to continue his sensitive approach we have established the “Sabri Ülker Environmental Award” platform to protect our water resources and ensure that they remain sustainable. The platform is being carried out as a joint effort between Yıldız Holding and the Clean Sea Foundation / TURMEPA. Work that is presented towards ensuring the continuation of the ecosystem and the use of our water resources by future generations and prepared under limited means, will be awarded in order to set an example in the community. Our goal is to share this inheritance that has been left to us with the community.” 

Double digit growth in operation profits and international revenue
Yıldız Holding Chief Financial Officer Dr. Cem Karakaş, who gave information about the Holding’s 2012 financial statement; said that 2012 was a year in which the food sector continued a balanced growth and that in parallel to this, the holding had increased the gross turnover by 8% from 11.5 billion TL to 12.4 billion TL. Karakaş, who noted that as a counterpart to the relative increase in sales revenue, operation profits had shown an increase at a significant rate of 64%, said that double digit growth had been captured in international operations. Karakaş said, “2.8 billion TL of our revenue has been recorded on our account as TL currency gains. Compared to 2011, the proceeds we have gained from our international operations increased by 19%”.

Karakaş, who also pointed out that Yıldız Holding has been undergoing an important restructuring in the past two years summarized 2012 as follows:
While structuring our sales companies, we  have sold various companies and made partnerships. While we were planning to obtain the effects of restructuring in 2013, as we can see from the 2012 financial statements, we have already started seeing a positive impact. Therefore 2012 has been a constructive year both in terms of profitability and cash creation.”

Simplification and productivity in organization
The simplification work that has been going on since 2010 in terms of organization has for the most part been completed. We were able to simplify two ways. First we gradually reduced the affiliation structures of our public companies. We combined some production and sales work that was being doing in more than one company under one roof. This gave us speed and flexibility in decision making. Not only did this structuring increase our organizational productivity it also brought our costs down.

The second stage in simplification was realized by the sales organization. We first successfully completed the restructuring process which started in the market channels and continued in traditional channels. We also formed a structure in the sales channel that will achieve sustainable productivity in the term ahead. We made some significant savings in our sales expenses and reached the goals we had set. With these savings we increased the profitability of both the sales companies and the production companies.

The 10th global partner came from Japan
In 2012 we continued our tradition of forming partnerships with global players that are leaders in their field. We made our 10th global partnership with the Japanese company NissinFoods. This was the first time we made a partnership on such a large scale with a Far Eastern country. A giant of giants making a partnership with Yıldız Holding not only increased our cultural wealth, it also served as an important benchmark that attracted the attention of companies in the eastern world.

The global sales at Godiva passed onto Northern America for the first time
Godiva, which we manage as an independent company within the holding, continued to grow especially in the Far East and Middle East. Godiva, which has 463 shops in 82 countries, continues retail in countries like China, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Australia. A company that moves forward with the strategy of entering fast growing and high potential countries, Godiva is targeting serious growth in this area within the next five years.

We may establish new facilities in the region in 2013
If we take a look at the goals for 2013, we foresee a double digit turnover and profit increase. Also in 2013, looking into new companies and looking for new investment opportunities have an important place on our agenda. In situations where we see that there are no players large enough for us to buy in the food sector of markets we have entered as a Holding, it may be advantageous to establish a new facility. For example, Egypt was such a market. As Yıldız Holding we started production in Egypt in 2009. In a very short time, about 3-4 years, we brought our operations there to the level of second place in the market. We will continue to work towards creating similar success stories in the other countries of the region.