Can Holding, whose foundations were laid in 1950 and started active commercial business by becoming a holding in 1986.
Within the same year, the Group officially started a reorganization process focusing on creating efficiencies and synergies between the various business lines. The reorganization process eventually lead to the strategic decision to move the company’s HQ to Istanbul in 1990.
The move to Istanbul was quickly followed by the launch of the first overseas office in Dubai in 1991, which greatly helped the institutionalizing the international trade activities of the group.
After the dissolution of the USSR in the 90s, the international growth of the group gained momentum with the trade activities in the newly established Central Asian Turkic Republics. Mr. Can quickly realized the commercial potential of the region and pioneered by becoming one of the first foreign investors in Kazakhstan in 1991. This first investment opened the path to expand Can Holding’s commercial activities in Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Since that time, Can Holding steadily expanded his presence in these countries up to today.
In the following years, different members of the Can family have personally taken the responsibility to expand the company’s operation in the region and create sustainable cooperation and partnership models with local companies. Following on the same path, Can Holding crossed bridges to the Middle East countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
By crossing geographical boundaries, investing in various regions, collaboration models and partnerships, Can Holding strengthened its dedication to become an international player and has set its vision for the future.
In line with this vision, in 1993, Can Holding opened the doors of its first gas station under the brand “Enerji Petrol”, which today successfully operates the largest amount of gas stations across Turkey. Within the same year the company engaged in the international trade of crude oil.
Growing rapidly within the Energy sector “Energy Petrol”, has become the first company to obtain the “distribution license” after successfully completing all the compliance checks set by the National Security Council.
In the following years, the Group kept expanding across various regions of the country and set up a high-capacity mineral oil factory in 2003 and subsequently set up “Enerji Gaz’ company in 2005 and increased its presence within the energy sector.
Established on this solid basis, Can Energy Group, as of today, has one of the largest oil & gas storage capacity in the country, servicing many MNCs active within the energy sector in Turkey with its’ state of art infrastructure complying to all international requirements.
With its “Energy” brand, the Group currently operates within 81 cities with its 275 gas stations providing service to corporates as well as individuals offering a full range of products within the gas and oil sector.
In 2000, following the changing consumer needs and developments in Turkey, Can Group laid the foundations of the “Durable Products Manufacturing” Group, which has strategic importance in terms of international trade. Starting with its own brand “Awox”, the Group has started to produce its own television line and established its first factory in Çerkezköy. This particular production facility has been used to launch the Small Home Appliances department which is currently producing a total amount of 25 different product lines.
In the next years, Can group, in line with its strategic targets and the growth of the priority sectors, has focused on the capacity increase within its’ existing business lines and at the same time kept investing and growing within new sectors, not only in Turkey but also in neighboring countries.
With the upcoming celebrations of the 100th year of Republic of Turkey in 2023, we are proud to be a part of the country’s development with our 700.000 square meters of dedicated production area for household appliances, electronics, TVs, small appliances, air conditioning units, and refrigerators. Can Group aims to become the largest manufacturing company in Turkey, this bold strategy includes the production, distribution, and export of 50 million pieces of products annually under the brands of “Awox”, “Seikon”, “Telefox'' and “Energia” in the range of durable consumer products.
The Group started Port investments by foreseeing the logistics changes in the supply chain and started the Port investment by putting the Ambarlı Port project into operation.
In line with the Group’s core value that development of individuals and of the country can only be achieved through a world class education infrastructure available to every citizen, Can Group has made its entrance to the education sector with its active support to Bilgi Education and Culture Foundation and to Bilgi University in the summer of 2019. Bilgi University, which is one of the first foundation universities in Turkey has over 60.000 thousand graduates and more than 25,000 students.
As a continuation of the investments in the field of education, an important milestone was the addition of Doğa Koleji to the Can Education Group in the first quarter of 2022.
Doğa Koleji is Turkey's leading educational institution consisting of more than 100 campuses spread across the country, providing premium education to nearly 60,000 students while having more than 100,000 graduates.
With Bilgi University and Doğa Koleji combining their strengths and experiences, our Education Group will continue to take innovative and strong steps in the field of education.
With that vision the Group continues to invest in education technologies, digital and telecommunication and communication infrastructure. As an integral part of this strategy the Group has recently completes its investment into and superstructure in order to adapt its investments into Lecturio GMBH, one of the most innovative educational technology platforms in the world, attracting various industry leaders as investor.
Within the “Tourism” sector Can Group currently runs 7 city hotels, of which 6 are situated in Istanbul, with a total capacity of 2500 beds, a 2000 square meter conference space..
In line with the strategy of creating an ecosystem of companies from various sectors to enable synergies and spillover of know-how, the Group continues to operate and invest in different areas such as logistics & cargo, paper and packaging, healthcare, cement & concrete and retail sector.
As part of Group’s medium and long-term investment strategy The Group has also started its first investments in Ivory and Burkina Faso which will be followed up by further investments in West African countries.