Tansas, the first and only rated company in Turkey, was a publicly traded municipality-owned company. Privatized in 1999, it did, however, not benefit from the 2000 fast growth experienced by the Turkish economy. This was mainly due to a lack of good governance, and the company almost went bankrupt. In 2001, a new CEO was nominated to restore the severe financial and commercial situation in the company: negative EBIT of US$25 Million, Bank debt of US$180Million and decreasing sales from 200 stores generating only US$350Million.

The reasons for Tansas' financial crisis could be found not in the management but at a board level. There was a lack of corporate governance principles at the ownership level: Both positions of the CEO and Chairman were held by the same person, the board was not functioning in a transparent manner, there were significant communication problems and no investors relations department. For example, stores were set up without any apparent business strategy and the minutes of the board meetings seemed incomplete.

The first action was to convince the shareholders to set up corporate governance principles as follow:

- Separate CEO and Chairman positions;

- Regular board meeting, once a month;

- Careful reporting of board's discussions;

- Investors relations department.

In a very short time period, despite the Turkish economic crisis of 2001, the company started performing. In four years time, the company has become one of the best performing companies in all fields, competing effectively with the international retail chains on the local market. Fitsh gave a rating of 7/10 to the company.   

Unit: US$ Million

EBIT: Earnings Before Interest & Tax