Prominent Turkish businessman Isak Alaton dead at 89

ISTANBUL

Ishak Alaton, founder and honorary chairman of Alarko Holding, died late Sunday of heart failure. He was 89.

Alaton was discharged Friday from the hospital, where he received treatment, company officials said.

Born in 1927 in Istanbul, Alaton graduated from the city's French Saint Michel High School in 1946. He went to Sweden in 1951 and began his career as a welding worker at the Motala Locomotive Factory.

After returning to Turkey three years later, he founded Alarko as an ordinary partnership in a small office of Vefai Han in Karakoy, laying the foundations of Alarko Holding, together with Uzeyir Garih, who passed away in 2001.

Alaton served as chairman of Alarko Holding from 1973, when it became a publicly-held holding company, until May 2015.

Alarko is one of Turkey's leading industrial enterprises with a history of 60 years and operations in five different sectors, 24 subsidiaries, including a joint international venture, 7,000 employees and annual revenues of 2.5 billion TL (approximately $0.8 billion), as of the end of last year.