Is this going to crash because we don't go out and buy 2008 Pandas? I don't think so. >>Age of Riches - A New Breed of Billionaire
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
ISTANBUL — Stuck in a traffic jam in his bulletproof BMW, the richest man in Turkey lets loose with a satisfied grin.
Since 2000, Husnu M. Ozyegin has spent more than $50 million of his own money, building 36 primary schools and girls’ dormitories in the poorest parts of Turkey. Next to the Turkish government, Mr. Ozyegin is the biggest individual supporter of schools in the country — and an official from the education ministry has told him that his market share is increasing.
“Not bad,” he says in his gruff, cigarette-scarred voice as he pockets his mobile phone. “If I can have an impact on one million Turkish people in the next 10 years, I will be happy.”
The global wealth boom has created a new breed of billionaire in once-destitute countries like Turkey, India, Mexico and Russia. Propelled by their rising economies, robust currencies and globally competitive companies, they have ridden a surge in local stock markets that have reached previously untouchable heights in a short five-year timeframe. Now, a number of them are using their wealth to bolster their standing and push for social changes.
These entrepreneurs, who have made their billions in private sector industries like telecommunications, petrochemicals and finance, are distinct from a past generation of international billionaires, most with ties to Middle Eastern oil or valuable land holdings. Not only have they become the richest men in their countries; they are among the wealthiest in the world.
For these emerging economies, where loose regulation, opaque privatization processes and monopolistic business practices abound, this extraordinary and uneven creation of wealth rivals in many ways the great American fortunes made at the turn of the 20th century.
While such countries have long been accustomed to vast disparities between a tiny class of the wealthy elite and the impoverished masses, the new elite shares some characteristics with counterparts in the United States. And just as Rockefellers, Carnegies and Morgans once used philanthropy to smooth the rough edges of their cutthroat business reputations — as have a current generation of wealthy Americans that includes Bill Gates of Microsoft and Sanford I. Weill of Citigroup — local billionaires in emerging markets are trying to do the same.
Global Philanthropy
Carlos Slim Helú, the telecommunications entrepreneur in Mexico who is worth more than $50 billion, has pledged billions of dollars to his two foundations that will aid health and education. Roman Abramovich, Russia’s richest man, who has a net worth of $18 billion, has channeled more than $1 billion into the impoverished Arctic area of Chukotka, where he also serves as governor, building schools and hospitals.
And in India, Azim Premji, the chairman of the software company Wipro who is worth $17 billion, has established his own foundation that supports elementary education.
To be sure, as these fortunes are still being made, the sums donated are relatively small in light of the pressing social needs of these countries. But as return-driven philanthropy has gained in popularity through the efforts of Mr. Gates and others, emerging market billionaires are applying similar bottom-line oriented lessons to their own countries.
“What we are seeing in these countries,” said Jane Wales, president of the Global Philanthropy Forum, “are people emerging from the private sector with tremendous wealth who are attracted to highly strategic philanthropy.”
A Nontraditional Climb
Here in Turkey, Mr. Ozyegin, who is 62 and has a net worth of $3.5 billion, did not secure his wealth by buying government assets on the cheap or by belonging to a rich family that controls a monopoly — two traditional routes to great wealth in the developing world.
The founder of a midtier corporate bank called Finansbank, he cashed in on a rush of interest by foreign financial institutions in Turkish banks last year and sold a controlling stake in his bank to the National Bank of Greece, receiving $2.7 billion in cash.
Flush with money and ambition, he is doing all that he can to lift Turkish educational standards at the primary and university level.
Sitting in his personal conference room atop Finansbank’s main office in Istanbul, Mr. Ozyegin recalls Aug. 18, 2006, when the sale of his 49 percent stake officially closed.
“I remember that day better than my birthday,” he said, as he leaned back in a plush leather chair. “I was not only a billionaire but the richest man in Turkey. It’s a great feeling, but your responsibilities increase.”
Like many self-made billionaires, Mr. Ozyegin has a direct, demanding manner, and a day spent traveling with him does not yield much casual conversation. He carries two cellphones, Throughout a long day he juggles calls from his wife, his assistant, his son and assorted government bureaucrats, as well as the managers of his various businesses.
He typically works 11-hour days, not solely from his suite of offices but also from his car, plane or boat, checking in on his far-flung operations in Turkey as well as Russia, Romania and China.
“I’m first generation, that gives me satisfaction,” he said. “Getting to the top is not so easy; staying there is more difficult.”
Mr. Ozyegin’s grandparents came to the southern Turkish city of Izmir from the Greek island of Crete in the late 19th century, during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire. The son of a doctor, he attended Robert College, an elite academy in Istanbul, before setting off to Oregon State University in 1963 with $1,000 in his pocket.
An overachiever, he played basketball and led the student government, but earned mediocre grades. Harvard Business School seemed like a long shot given that he was in need of a scholarship. But he attached a picture of himself welcoming Robert F. Kennedy to Oregon State to his application and was accepted. “I guess they liked me for my leadership abilities,” he said.
After a successful banking career, he founded Finansbank in 1987, selling his two homes and borrowing $3 million to get the deal done.
At the outset, the bank’s ambitions were small, providing corporate banking services to Turkish businesses. The bank’s fortunes fluctuated in line with the volatile economy, expanding rapidly during the heady years of strong economic growth, but facing extinction on two separate occasions, in 1994 and 2001, when the Turkish markets suffered contractions.
Becoming Competitive
As a businessman, his frequent interaction with Southeast Asia, China and Russia has impressed upon him the need for Turks to become more competitive in today’s global economy.
“The most important problem that Turkey has is education,” he said.
He cites the rapid increase of applications to Harvard Business School from Chinese and Indian students. Turkey, a smaller country, sends only four to eight students a year, said Mr. Ozyegin, who meets with the students when he visits.
Beyond his public school investments, Mr. Ozyegin has plans to spend up to $1 billion over the next 15 years on a new private university, to be called Ozyegin University.
“I want to do something on a major scale,” he said. “My vision is that we can train and export people like India does.”
Since he started his building program in 2000, Mr. Ozyegin has completed 36 schools and girls’ dormitories at a cost that varies from $400,000 to $1.8 million each. He wants to reach 100 by 2010. He works closely with the government, with most of the building taking place in the country’s poorest regions in the south and northeast.
“That is a lot, it is a very significant number,” said Filiz Bikmen, the executive director of Tusev, a philanthropy foundation in Istanbul.
Turkey has the lowest ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary school of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which requires its 30 members to meet minimum requirements for living standards and democratic practices. Turkey’s low standing is a result of a traditional culture that, especially in poorer areas, places a higher premium on a boy’s education than a girl’s.
In a country where the ruling party draws its root support from an electorate that is becoming more Islamic in attitude and outlook, Mr. Ozyegin’s aim to reach out to undereducated girls touches a sensitive cultural vein (through his wife’s foundation, Acev, he has also helped pay for women’s literacy and early education programs in poor parts of the country.)
A practicing Muslim but avowedly secular in outlook, Mr. Ozyegin embodies the hopes as well as fears of Turkey’s elite, many of its ranks now supporters of the ruling Justice and Development party, which has led the revitalization of the Turkish economy.
Mr. Ozyegin hopes that focusing on education as an economic development tool will help transcend the current bitter disputes over religious practice, including whether the increase in the number of women wearing head scarves signifies the emergence of a more Islamic, less secular Turkey.
“I want Turkey to have the same education levels as Europe 25 years from now,” he said. “Whether you wear a scarf should not matter.”
A Focus on Education
When Mr. Ozyegin visits a school, he is frequently met by the district’s mayor, a representative from the education ministry and various other local notables. His visits, like his business meetings, are swift and to the point — a sweep through the school’s halls and a barrage of questions directed at school officials.
At a primary school bearing his name, in a working-class district on the outskirts of Istanbul, he marches into a classroom of wide-eyed sixth graders who jump to their feet with the spirit and alacrity of a platoon hailing its general and he exhorts them to heed their studies.
At another school, he upbraids an official for countenancing stained carpets and trash that lines the building’s long hallways. “This place is full of garbage,” he said, his voice low and angry. “Do something about it. It’s shameful.”
There are touching moments, too. A newly built primary school in a village close to the border with Armenia echoes with shouts of its 360 students as Mr. Ozyegin’s wife, sister and brother-in-law, who oversee the logistics of the building program, stop by for a visit.
Rarely do the children here attend high school. Many of them speak Kurdish as their first language, and their parents eke out an existence as sheep and cow herders.
Clothes are frayed and toes poke through the holes of plastic shoes. But, like the fading evening light on the snowy peak of nearby Mount Ararat, there are glimmers of hope, too.
Danyan Kuba, a tall, nervous seventh grader dressed in a coat and tie, is asked what he wants to be when he grows up. He shifts awkwardly, looks down at his shoes and back up again. “I want to be a math teacher,” he says in a strong, clear voice.
For Mr. Ozyegin, becoming one of the richest men in the world has brought its own pressures. He gets many letters each day. Some ask him to erase the debt they have on their Finansbank credit cards.
Others are more poignant — recently he received a letter from an admirer in jail asking for a pair of shoes and a suit, a request he plans to honor.
Like some who have made so much, Mr. Ozyegin likes to keep score.
Warren E. Buffett may be the richest man in the world, but Mr. Ozyegin says, his wealth has risen faster. “My compounding is better than Buffett’s, but my track record is only one-half as long,” he said.
He is also a student of the life of J. P. Morgan: he reels off how much Morgan, who dominated the world of finance at the turn of the 20th century, left to his son, daughter and wife, as well as the salary he awarded the captain of his yacht. But Mr. Ozyegin’s lack of renown on the larger global stage nags at him.
“I’m giving away 2 percent of my net income every month,” he said. “I don’t think Bill Gates is doing that.”
nytimes.com |
