Sabancı Holding’s combined sales increased by 46 percent to 152 billion TL in 2021. Group’s consolidated annual net profit reached an impressive 12 billion TL. While elaborating on Group’s approximately 5-billion-dollar-investment in the last five years, Sabancı Holding CEO Cenk Alper stated: "The important thing for us is not to merely adapt to the new normal but to be one of the key players who will influence the way things develop in the new normal. That's why, for the next five years, we will continue with investments almost twice as much as the last five years. While sustainability leads all our investments, we will strengthen Sabanci Group companies' global position through the power of technology. We will pioneer projects and practices that will make a significant global impact in 'new economy' that is energy and climate technologies, material technologies, and digital technologies."
While evaluating Sabancı Holding's financial health, CEO Cenk Alper stated, "Despite all the pandemic-driven challenging conditions, we managed to maintain our solid, constantly improving financial performance in 2021. Moreover, while increasing our cash position owing to improved profitability, our non-bank return of equity sharply improved and we have significantly reduced our indebtedness in the past five years. All these developments clearly illustrate strong balance sheet management on behalf of both Sabancı Holding and our Group companies. This agile and preemptive approach and our diversified portfolio enable us to weather all kinds of crises even in extraordinary market conditions. Our diversified portfolio approach not only led us to sustain profitability during the downturns but also allow us to capture entire benefits during the up cycles. I would like to thank all our stakeholders, especially our employees, for these impressive results.”
"Our group's purpose shape our activities"
Emphasizing the critical role of the 'Group's Purpose,' which was revised during the first few months of the pandemic to 'We unite Turkey and the World for a sustainable life with leading enterprises,' in shaping the activities of Sabancı Group during 2021, CEO Cenk Alper stated: "All our Group companies continued to make substantial progress in their respective fields by focusing on sustainability and technology.
Within the scope of our focus on energy and climate technologies, our energy business continued making renewable energy investments. We established Turkey's first green hydrogen plant with this goal in mind. Also, Temsa Electric buses, one of the most important examples of our commitment to sustainability, continue their test drives in Silicon Valley, home to most of the world's technology giants, while achieving substantial commercial success in Europe.
As part of our material technologies focus area, in Building Materials, we took a crucial global step in the value-added building materials value chain with the acquisition of the Buñol white cement factory in Spain. In addition, Kordsa, which transfers sustainable material technologies developed in tire reinforcement, composite, and construction to the whole world, was selected as the best R&D Center in Turkey for the third time.
We have increased our focus on developing digital technologies while continuing the transformation of our core business. In Financial Services, we continue our journey with a single partner in both insurance companies; Aksigorta and Agesa are now fully consolidated with the new structure. Aksigorta's Next digital insurance platform and Teknosa's new Technology Marketplace platform teknosa.com emerged as significant indicators of the impressive ability of the Sabancı ecosystem to create value from digital areas. In addition, we finalized the acquisition of 89 percent of Arvento Vehicle Tracking Systems, which represents another crucial step in transforming Brisa from a tire manufacturer into a mobility solutions player.
Our banking business has one of the most robust capital structures in its sector, with a solid consolidated capital adequacy ratio of 21.1 percent. With the strength gained from this structure, our banking line continued to contribute to the development of the real sector with the provision of company loans. In 2021, we increased our loan support for the Turkish economy to 485 billion TL, 397 billion TL of which was provided in cash.
On the other hand, we ended our 30-year partnership in PHILSA and PMSA by transferring all our shares to Philip Morris."
"We make a sizeable difference when it comes to sustainability"
While emphasizing Sabancı Holding's aim to reach 'Net Zero' greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050, Cenk Alper stated: "Our companies have already started to set their intermediate targets to adapt to the 1.5-degree scenario.
Recently, Brisa, one of our Industrial Group companies, received approval from the Science-Based Target Initiative; this was a first in Turkey and worldwide for this sector. In addition, while Kordsa was included in the CDP Water Program Valuation Global A-List, Çimsa achieved the highest water score in its sector in Turkey within the scope of CDP. Gender equality is one of our main priorities when implementing improved sustainability; with our initiatives, we have become the first and only holding company in Turkey to be included in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index. In addition, we were the first and only Turkish company to be included in the ‘World's Most Women-Friendly Companies’ list by Forbes Magazine.”