Financing Turkey’s Future
During Isak Antika’s 18-year tenure at JPMorganChase, he played a key role in helping the Turkish government secure financing for transformative, landmark projects that reshaped the country’s infrastructure and economy.
Now, the former JPMorganChase Senior Country Officer of Turkey continues to transform this transcontinental country as co-founder and managing partner of Actera Group, Turkey’s largest private equity shop. The fund manages over $3.3 billion in assets, investing primarily in Turkish mid-market businesses. It’s a major Turkish employer, with over 70,000 employees across portfolio companies that generate upwards of $5 billion in revenue.
“Everybody in life tries to build a little mark in history,” Antika says. “I’m trying to leave a mark in Turkish private equity history, and that really excites me.”
Building a fund from scratch
Actera got off the ground in the early 2000s, not long after Antika returned to Istanbul from London where he ran investment banking for JPMorganChase’s Central East Europe, Middle East, Africa group. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now Turkey’s president, was the country’s newly elected prime minister looking to reshape Turkey into a more attractive destination for investment.
“At the time, there was a new momentum,” Antika says. Turkey’s savings rate, however, was—and still is—depressed, driven by a younger population that tends to spend more than it saves. To grow, the country desperately needed foreign capital.
Antika first founded Antika Partners, a corporate finance and M&A house that was a strategic partner of Merrill Lynch in Turkey. But then he pivoted, setting out to accomplish the ambitious task of creating a Western-style, independently managed buyout fund comparable to a regional KKR or Blackstone.
Momentum for the fund started to build after a banking friend introduced Antika to Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, which became Actera’s first major investor—with a catch. A second institution would have to match their investment.
After a challenging, nearly two-year search for additional supporters, Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and the European Investment Bank joined as investors, too. The Canadian cornerstone investors, alone, committed €75 million each to Actera.
Investing in Turkey’s top companies
Today, Actera’s investments span industries, from shipping, to e-commerce, to commercial finance, gyms, cinemas and alcoholic beverages. “You name it, we have it,” says Antika. And while the fund itself can’t invest internationally, its companies can, helping expand Turkish companies’ reach far past its borders.
A memorable investment for Antika was when Actera acquired the struggling largest roll-on, roll-off shipping business in the Mediterranean from KKR, UN Ro-Ro. Actera turned the business around and sold it to a Danish firm for $1.2 billion. At a J.P. Morgan CEO conference, representatives of KKR personally congratulated Antika on the deal.
Actera also acquired, consolidated and digitalized Turkey’s largest cinema chains, then sold the company to South Korea’s largest conglomerate. The deal became a Harvard Business School case study when the school recognized it as the best emerging market private equity exit. “That was a very good exit for us,” says Antika, was proud that the case was presented to Harvard MBA students.
Other Actera investments include Mey İçki, Turkey’s largest spirits producer and distributor, which has an 85% market share in Raki, Turkey’s anise-flavored national drink; MAC, Turkey’s largest health club business; and Karnaval Media Group, the country’s largest commercial radio broadcaster.
Antika is 64 now, but he doesn’t appear to be slowing down. His daily routine consists of early-morning exercise before starting his workday at 8 a.m. Often, he continues working well into the evening. But he doesn’t mind. It’s work that he loves.
Lessons learned from JPMorganChase
JPMorganChase, the only other company Antika has worked for, taught him how to be a successful leader. “Everything I learned in business life, I learned at JPMorganChase,” he says.
While at the firm, Antika advised the Turkish government on key privatizations, including Turkish oil refineries and state banks, and helped finance landmark projects such as two of Turkey’s three Bosphorus bridges, which connect Europe and Asia. He assisted Turkey in securing its first sovereign credit rating and Eurobond, too.
From working in London, New York and Istanbul, Antika benefitted from broad leadership exposure in the firm’s smaller regional office in Turkey, while developing a deep expertise into the ins and outs of banking while at the firm’s global financial hubs. When building Actera, he applied JPMorganChase’s collegial culture and values.
A penchant for planning and preservation
Outside of the office, Antika is passionate about architecture and development. He bought, part developed and sold a leading summer resort in Turkey’s southern tourist town of Bodrum. Antika also built Actera’s offices in Istanbul, while his current home is an Ottoman castle that he painstakingly renovated.
He enjoys spending time there with family, including his two daughters when they visit—one has worked at Microsoft for a decade, continuing the family tradition of staying loyal to one company for a long tenure. “That line of stability is in our genes,” Antika says.
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