Yildiz overpaid to go global, then survived Turkey's biggest loan restructuring

Murat Ulker turned his family's Turkish biscuit maker into a global sweets empire: $850m for Godiva in 2007, then DeMet's Candy and a $3.2bn United Biscuits deal in 2014, folded into London-based pladis. The acquisitions were financed with heavy foreign-currency debt — just as the lira lost more than 40% of its value, pushing monthly loan repayments above $1 billion.

In February 2018 Yildiz went to its banks before defaulting and asked them to consolidate the loans. By May it signed Turkey's biggest-ever loan restructuring: $5.5bn of its $8.5bn debt refinanced as a four-year loan extendable by four more, with almost all domestic real estate and some overseas assets pledged as collateral. Eight banks, from Yapi Kredi to HSBC's Turkish arm, took part.

To pay the debt down, Yildiz sold pieces rather than the whole: in 2019 Godiva's Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand operations — some 300 stores plus a Belgian plant, worth $1–1.5bn — went to Korea's MBK Partners, while Yildiz kept the Godiva brand and its other markets. The group emerged smaller but solvent, still owning pladis, Ulker and Godiva's core business.

Turkey's largest loan restructuring: $5.5bn refinanced on 4+4-year terms, plus ~$1bn from selling Godiva's Asia-Pacific arm to MBK — debt cut, brands kept.

It approached banks proactively in February 2018, before missing payments, which kept creditors cooperative.

Offering nearly all real estate as collateral gave banks a reason to extend maturities instead of seizing assets.

Selling Godiva's APAC arm raised ~$1bn without surrendering the brand itself.

Core Turkish cash flows from Ulker and Sok retail kept servicing debt through the crisis.

Buying global brands with short-term FX debt is fatal when your currency halves — the fix is to restructure early, collateralize everything, and sell crown-jewel pieces before banks force you to.

Yildiz's restructuring became the template for Turkish conglomerates — Dogus Holding and others followed within months. The group continued trimming non-core assets, kept pladis as one of the world's top biscuit makers, and Murat Ulker remained Turkey's richest man, though the empire never regained its pre-2014 acquisition appetite.