History
The Holding commenced its activities with the establishment of Pacific Shipping Agency at Izmit, Izmit Bay back in 1999. The Agency developed swiftly and soon succeeded to serve a substantial number of international ship-owners as well as Turkish owners and local receivers and factories. Izmit bay is the heart of Turkish industry and there are over twenty ports located in the bay serving major manufacturers and importers / exporters of a wide range of products. The agency today serves over 1.000 vessels on an annual basis covering ship-owners from pre-arrival formalities to port operations and departure to Turkish straits crossings.
The Holding started its ship-owning and ship-management activity with the establishment of Pacific Shipping Group. The first vessel purchased was m/v Gulf in 2004, a small general cargo vessel with the right specifications for trading between Black Sea and Mediterranean ports. The first purchase led to the purchase and trading of several more vessels, which were getting bigger in size, younger in age and improving in specifications. The present fleet comprises of ten vessels ranging from mini-bulkers to general cargo geared vessels and supramax size wood chip carriers. The names of all our mini-bulkers and general cargo vesels start with “Gulf” as our starting point was the Gulf of Izmit.
During the past years Mr. Burak Akartas realized the potential of Caspian regional countries and established Caspian Trans a company manned with experts in multi modal transport. Caspian Trans serves the needs of Caspian neighbouring countries for the carriage of all goods on a door to door basis. In addition our continous presence in the wood trade led to the formation of Trade marine in London offering expertise to wood traders, charterers and factories worldwide.
Information technology was and is considered an important element in our activities and the need to incorporate the latest developments in hardware and software led to the acquisition of Kocaeli Burada.
Mr. Burak Akartas was graduated from the Civil Engineering department of Kocaeli University and obtained a post graduate degree in Geophysical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University. Therefore it was a matter of time before the construction and real estate sectors became part of our activities. Ritrakons, our contsruction company, and Akartas Tourism and Construction, our real estate company, was established to follow the dynamic market.
Our Holding plans to house all its activities in its owned modern building presently constructed by Ritrakons at Izmit by mid 2016, with the exception of Pacific Shipping Group that will continue to operate out of our own building at Tuzla, Istanbul.