Arkas

The 1900s and Izmir, the backbone of the Anatolian economy… The Ottoman gateway to Europe with its centuries-old port. All kinds of products grown on its fertile soil, from cotton to tobacco, from grapes to figs, were shipped from Izmir not only to the East but also to the West.

Founded in 1902 as an import company by Gabriel J.B. Arcas in this popular port city, Arkas began its international transport activities in 1944 under the leadership of Lucien Gabriel Arcas. That same year, in addition to its first shipping agency, the company entered the railway business with the Levant Express. The following year, in 1945, the first shipments were made to Egypt. The ships are loaded with acorns to be transported to Egypt.

The development of Arkas began when Lucien Arkas, the current Chairman of Arkas, founded the Lucien Arkas Steamship Agency in 1964, followed by the first container shipments to Northern Europe in 1978. Arkas opened its first office in Istanbul in 1972 and introduced this transport model to its customers.

Following these changes, Arkas decided to establish a public limited company in 1979 and “Arkas Shipping and Transportation” was founded.

Arkas, which began building its own fleet in 1996 while acting as an agency for world-class shipowners, accelerated its restructuring and corporate formation with the establishment of Arkas Holding in the early 2000s. Today, Arkas unites under its umbrella 67 companies active in various fields such as shipping, agency, port management, logistics, marine refuelling, automotive, insurance services, information systems and tourism.

With a total of 7300 employees in its offices in 25 countries abroad and 14 offices in Turkey, Arkas today has the largest fleet of container vessels in Turkey with 50 container vessels. The fleet also includes 7 tankers flying the Turkish flag. Arkas is ranked 20th in Clarkson’s list of world shipowners.

Aiming to contribute not only to its own growth but also to the development of the sectors in which it operates through its pioneering investments, Arkas continues to break new ground in port operations. While investing in the expansion and capacity of Marport, Turkey’s busiest container port, which it established in 2001, Arkas has also partnered with Terminal del Golfo in La Spezia, Italy, to apply its port management expertise abroad.

Recognising that Turkey’s number one export, automobiles, lacked adequate port infrastructure, Arkas established Autoport, the country’s first specialised automotive port, in 2008 to become one of the most important logistics hubs for automotive exports. In a region where Turkey’s demand for vehicle transportation is around one million vehicles, Autoport offers operational convenience to the sector with its location at the intersection of the storage areas of automotive manufacturers and distributors in Eastern and Southern Marmara.

When Arkas Logistics was established in 1989, it was involved in pre- and post-container transport. Today, Arkas Logistics operates in three main business areas: Warehousing, Terminal Services, Transportation and Forwarding Services with 14 offices in Turkey, mainly in Istanbul, Izmir, Denizli, Bursa, Mersin, İskenderun, Ankara, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Konya, Samsun, Trabzon and Antalya. Abroad, it has 12 offices in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Greece and China. In other countries, it has access to the whole world through a network of nearly 100 agencies.

Believing that the future of Turkey lies in Anatolia, Arkas believes in the importance of railways for the development of Anatolia and for connecting Anatolian cities to ports at affordable costs in order to promote local production. Founded in 2003, Ar-Gü has the largest number of containers transported by rail in the private sector with 706 wagons.

With the aim of developing multimodal logistics centres in Turkey and expanding the intermodal network between Europe and Asia, Arkas is establishing the Kartepe Logistics Centre (Railport). The aim is to distribute cargo arriving at the Railport by rail or road to Europe, China and Anatolia.

These companies, which operate in the international transport and services sectors, will certainly not be the last stop on Arkas’ long journey. Lucien Arkas believes that to achieve your goals, you must first set the right goals: “To be successful, you must first love your job,” he says, adding, “…and of course work hard.

Having become a symbol of international transport, especially container transport in Turkey, Arkas is moving forward with this philosophy.