The bank, which opened to business in 1984, was originally a branch of the First National Bank of Boston. In 1990 it was incorporated in Turkey and First National sold 75% of its shares to Oyak, the army mutual assistance corporation, and Alarko, a contracting and real-estate development group with some manufacturing interests. Soon it became clear that the partners had different objectives so in 1993 Oyak bought out all the other shareholders.
Since then the bank has been working "in a very quiet way", as Foley puts it, and "is between a proper commercial bank and a classic merchant bank". Oyak is also unusual in Turkey in having such a high proportion of its assets invested in overseas subsidiaries. Of the bank's 1997 assets of $508 million, only $239 million arose from domestic sources. The rest are invested in Ireland and the AB Anker Bank in Germany which was acquired last year.
Foley, 45, was in the original team which came from Boston to open the branch in Istanbul. He married a Turkish woman and feels "more than a bit Turkified". His Turkish is almost good enough to conduct business in.