Established in 1991, ABank became a listed company in 1995 when it offered 20% of its shares to the public. The following year, the Anadolu Group, one of Turkey’s leading conglomerates, purchased 80% of the shares from the Doğan Group. At present, a 5% block of ABank shares are publicly traded on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE), while member companies of the Anadolu Group hold the remaining 95%.

Alternatifbank A.Ş. is a mid-size Turkish bank, predominantly active as a service provider in commercial/ corporate business particularly catering to medium to small scale enterprises as the target customer base. The Bank’s primary activities consist of corporate/commercial, individual banking, leasing and investment banking. The bank has expanded its branch network from 21 in 2002 to 40 at the end of 2007. With the well distributed branch network across Turkey, the Bank serves over 5000 active corporate customers, 3500 of which are the SMEs where the Bank has allocated credit lines. The bank’s branch network covers an area that accounts for the output of some 75% of the country’s GDP. During 2006 & 2007 the total loan book growth was on annual average 39 % (CAGR), where profitability also reached new records at the same period with return on average equity 30.8 % for 2007 and 21.7 % for 2006. Profitability at the end of 2007 has doubled by reaching USD 64.6 million in comparison to the previous year, assuring once again the right strategy implementation over the years.

Special attention has been paid at all times to asset quality and the bank has sustained its cautious approach combined with the highly sophisticated risk management techniques to maintain its net NPL ratio below sector’s average. The overall result of this successful performance openly dictates healthy and sustainable income generation under well functioning asset & liability management.

In 2007, ABank handled US$1,8 billion worth of international business, corresponding to 0.7 % of Turkey’s total international trade volume. Total assets reached to US$2,25 billion, while ROE and ROA stood at 30.8% and 3.3% respectively well above the sector averages. The capital adequacy ratio at year-end 2007 materialized as 14.9%, providing a comfortable capital cushion against the legal requirements of 12% level. On October 2nd 2007, Alternatifbank Board of Directors enacted a resolution to increase the paid-in capital ceiling of the bank with an amount of YTL 75 million to bring total paid-in capital to YTL 300 million level and the pertinent legal process was concluded as of January 31st, 2008. 

The investment arm of the bank is represented by AYatırım which deals with trading of securities including stocks, treasury bills, state bonds for its customers and intermediates IPO’s in addition to providing investment advisory services and private portfolio management. The company has also taken under the management of 6 respective investment funds created by its parent company ABank. The Group owns the leasing company ALease through ABank which helps to finance the machinery, technical equipment and vehicle imports of its corporate clients.

In 2008, ABank is planning to enhance its activities in retail banking as well with a strategic aim to carve itself a niche market share and reputation through extending its services to selective customer segments. Private banking and micro lending to small enterprises will be part of the strategic agenda contributing to the organic growth through cross-sell techniques and by capitalizing on the synergy of its parent company which is active in vast ranges of industrial and business sectors across the country. Growth oriented approach will also be sustained in Commercial / Corporate banking areas as well through further developing tailor made products to maximize customers’ overall satisfaction. Information Technology has been given special attention over the years in adopting most advanced and updated systems in the implementation of internet banking services as well as intra- departmental coordination under high efficiency.

The future outlook is intended to transform ABank from a compact niche player to a solid medium size universal bank focusing major business lines including commercial/corporate, retail, investment and other related financial services to cater its customer requirements. The bank will continue to pursue growth in commercial/corporate and retail businesses funded mainly through individual depositors and lower-cost funds borrowed from external resources.