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Nurettin Eroğlu
Founder and Chairman of the Board (Eroğlu Global Holding, parent of Loft), Loft (Loft Mağazacılık A.Ş.) — a brand of Eroğlu Global Holding

Nurettin Eroğlu Cityscape emlakdream.com röportaj

🎥 Sep 16, 2014 📺 Emlakdream - Emlak Haberleri ⏱ 8m 👁 432 views
Nurettin Eroğlu Cityscape emlakdream.com röportaj.
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Transcript (17 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
We're here at the world's largest real estate fair. We're at the fair with the Chairman of the Board of Eroğlu Construction, Nurettin Eroğlu. Nurettin Bey, we see you here with all your projects. You've presented your projects to Middle Eastern investors. Could you briefly evaluate the overall atmosphere here?
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Nurettin Eroğlu0:25
Although it's only been a day and a half or so, there's a lot of information flowing. This is our second participation here. People in this region already know our projects. We have serious demand from this region, especially from the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. There's a lot of interest in Turkey. Actually, these kinds of fairs — when we don't come to them, we should be doing them in Turkey. We need to work more on that as a country. Turkey is an important city and country, and Istanbul in particular is an important city in every way — the Islamic world, history, geography. That's why there's great demand from this region, particularly for Istanbul. We, as one of the important firms from Turkey, are also participating here. But there's a lot of demand from this region for Turkey because we share many similarities — the religious factor is important. They really love Istanbul; it's a symbolic city for them. Our projects are concentrated in Istanbul and Bursa. Bursa is also very important for this region — Uludağ, natural resources, the greenery. They love that. Currently, our most popular project here is a landmark mixed-use project in Istanbul — with a hotel, residences, offices, and a shopping mall. Its location is like a gem between two bridges. That project has a lot of interest, especially on the residential, office, and hotel sides. In Bursa, we also have significant interest. In Gürpınar, right on the seaside facing the bay and the open sea, our new model project is receiving serious interest. We've completed most of these, especially in Gürpınar and Seyrantepe. Seyrantepe is a 145-unit residential project that's progressing well. We'll be sharing three or four new projects with you soon, God willing.
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Interviewer2:30
How much in foreign sales did you make last year, and what's your target for the coming year?
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Nurettin Eroğlu2:36
Well, since March, Turkey went through two elections and then the summer season, which brought some slowdown. But foreign interest was high. The new regulations regarding foreign buyers in real estate provided a significant advantage. There's one current issue — a residency permit problem for foreigners and similar matters. I'm currently drawing the government's attention to this; they tell us they're working on it. If we resolve that, interest will increase even further.
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Interviewer3:13
Is the residency permit not sufficient for your foreign customers buying homes?
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Nurettin Eroğlu3:16
That's what they say. They have an expectation of permanent residency — in Bodrum, for example, they don't come to a hotel; they come to their own home. They want at least to become a citizen of the country, or if not, they want it to be their second address. They have that kind of expectation. So the interest is actually greater than we expected. If you look at the percentage, it's currently around 20%. I think that was especially sparked by the foreign buyer sales.
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Interviewer3:44
What's your target for foreign sales in your projects?
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Nurettin Eroğlu3:52
Of course, project sales also have the advantage of bringing in foreign currency. As you know, we're one of Turkey's largest exporters in textiles — we're second in our field in terms of exports. Yes, selling real estate abroad is essentially an export as well.
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Interviewer4:06
Let me ask you about this: How do you respond to the debate of industry versus textile?
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Nurettin Eroğlu4:13
I think it's like asking which of your two children you love more. I don't think we should differentiate between sectors. If you're capable, you can do both — because we're involved in both. We know the profitability, difficulties, ease, and employment contribution of both. These are two very different sectors from each other — one is industry. On the industry side, we're very strong in textile. Within textiles itself, you need to separate it further — there's a production side and a retail side. Even though they look like the same sector, they're completely different fields — almost like black and white. Profitability is of course important, but I don't look at sectors with that much favoritism. The real question is which one can you do better. But our first principle — profit is essential, of course, you're not a foundation, you're a commercial enterprise — but I'd say our primary principle isn't 'let's make profit and earn a lot'; it's 'let's do our work right.' We operate on that principle. We want to do our job properly. As for which is better, neither is a sector you'd give up for the other. I wouldn't sacrifice one for the other. I think what our minister said is also correct: a country that hasn't industrialized cannot develop. But that doesn't mean real estate should stop and only industry should be built — both should be done. Textiles is one of the sectors that contributes most to our trade balance and current account deficit, and triggers growth in many other sectors. Turkey has perhaps three to five representatives of this scale, and you're one of them in terms of production. When we moved into real estate, we didn't leave textiles behind. When we entered real estate, we had 9,000 employees; now we've grown to 14,000. We're expanding on both fronts.
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Interviewer6:14
How are your companies divided between construction and textiles?
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Nurettin Eroğlu6:18
25 to 75 — construction to textiles, roughly. God willing.
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Interviewer6:24
What are your targets going forward? Do you plan to grow further in both sectors?
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Nurettin Eroğlu6:28
Real estate is now part of the family — it's become part of the group's portfolio. When we enter a sector, we don't go in just to do one or two projects and then stop. We don't just look at the immediate returns. Real estate is very different from textiles. In textiles, it's systematic — you get the cotton from the field, you process it. In real estate, it doesn't work like that. You need to find the right land, build at the right time, and promote it properly. It's not a systematic conveyor-belt process like textiles. There can be ups and downs. Periods with many large projects, and periods with fewer. But in textiles, you can't do that — we have a factory running three days a week with 8,000 to 10,000 people. You can't just lay off 4,000 people. There's a certain discipline in textiles. But in this sector, things fluctuate — driven by supply and demand, and also by market sentiment. I'll say this now: if there's even a whisper of negative news in the market, the first things people hold back on are real estate, cars, and white goods. But food and textiles they don't cut back on because they need to eat and wear clothes. There's no substitute for those. But for real estate and vehicles, people immediately become cautious. So it's a sector that requires more careful attention. This year has also been a big year for deliveries, hasn't it? How many projects, how many units have you delivered? We've delivered 2,510 units so far. Out of 15 projects, we've completed 13. We have continuation projects, and we're working on three more by the end of the year.
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Interviewer8:22
Will you tell us about these projects?
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Nurettin Eroğlu8:25
We'll share video surprises soon. We love surprises. Thank you very much.
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Interviewer8:27
Thank you.