Çalık Holding is a Turkish company that has been operating in the energy, construction, mining, textile, finance, and telecom sectors since the 1980s. Founder and chairman Ahmet Çalık began his business career in the textile industry, founding Orta Doğu Tekstil in 1981 and Çalık Denim in 1987. During the early-1990s independence of CIS countries, he made his first foreign investments and founded Gap Pazarlama (to increase his company's share of international textile trading) and Gap İnşaat (to build plants).