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Where are Austria’s big international companies located?

Austria's most prominent international companies are involved in banking, insurance, and construction projects worldwide, many but are they all found in Vienna?

Where are Austria's big international companies located?
Many of Austria's largest companies are headquartered close to Vienna's city centre. Photo: Pixabay / Moritz320

Here’s where each of the ten largest companies in Austria, by revenue generated last year, are located, both within Vienna and outside of the capital.

One of Central and Eastern Europe’s biggest insurance firms, the Vienna Insurance Group is headquartered in the capital. Their main offices are directly north of the Innere Stadt on Schottenring, close to the Rossau district.

A fellow insurance firm, the Uniqa Group, is located close by. Owning over fifteen significant insurance providers across Europe, they are market leaders alongside Vienna Insurance Group. Their headquarters can be found in the eponymous Uniqa Tower, on Ferdinandstraße close to the Karmeliterviertel.

Erste Group, one of the continent’s biggest providers of financial services, was founded just over two hundred years ago in Leopoldstadt, a suburb adjoining Vienna’s centre to the east. Today, the group is headquartered in the Erste Campus, less than a five-minute walk from Vienna’s central train station.

Founded in the fifties, OMV is the country’s largest oil and gas company. The company owns three European refineries, including one at Schwechat in Lower Austria, near the capital. The company is based in the Hoch Zwei building in the Second District, near the banks of the Danube.

Construction company Strabag, responsible for massive infrastructure projects across Europe and South East Asia, is located across the Danube from OMW, near the Austria Centre and the expansive Donaupark.

Banking giant Raiffeisen International is headquartered in the Weissgerberviertel, north of Vienna’s city centre. Other divisions, including their software development teams, are based throughout the city centre.

Construction company Porr Group, which has many subsidiaries in Austria and involvement in significant railway building projects throughout Europe, has headquarters in Vienna’s south, five kilometres away, in the Favoriten district.

Verbund AG, Austria’s largest energy provider, can also be found outside Vienna’s centre. It is based to the south-west, close to the Mariahilf district and the city’s Westbahnhof, or western train station.

Steel and technology group Voestalpine is located away from Vienna in Linz, Upper Austria, roughly equidistant between Salzburg and Vienna. The company’s headquarters can be found between the Spallerhof district and the Industriegebeit, or industrial area.

Finally, international metals and technology firm Andritz AG is also based outside Vienna, in Graz in Styria. Their headquarters is some distance from the city centre, in the district which gave the company its name: Graz-Andritz.

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ECONOMY

Key divisions of Austria’s property giant Signa file for insolvency

The two most important property divisions of real estate giant Signa -- whose vast portfolio includes New York's iconic Chrysler building -- are filing for insolvency, the company announced Thursday.

Key divisions of Austria's property giant Signa file for insolvency

The filings mark the latest troubling developments at Signa, exacerbating the spectacular downfall of self-made Austrian tycoon Rene Benko.

Benko — one of Austria’s richest men — founded Signa in 2000 and grew it into a property and retail conglomerate. But as the sector is hit by higher borrowing costs and rising building material prices, a growing number of developers are filing for bankruptcy.

The Signa Prime Selection division — which includes properties such as the Berlin shopping gallery KaDeWe — on Thursday initiated self-administrated insolvency proceedings at Vienna’s commercial court, the company said.

A second subsidiary, Signa Development Selection, will also file Friday to restructure under self-administration, it said.

BACKGROUND: Austria property giant Signa to file for insolvency

Credit rating agency Fitch had already downgraded the Signa Development unit earlier this year.

“It is well known that external factors have had a negative impact on business development in the real estate sector in recent months,” the statement said. “Despite considerable efforts in recent weeks, the necessary liquidity for an out-of-court restructuring could not be secured to a sufficient extent, so that SIGNA Prime Selection AG has applied for restructuring proceedings with self-administration,” it added.

At the end of November, Signa’s holding company filed for insolvency after Benko announced he was handing over the chairmanship of the company’s advisory board to a German restructuring expert.

According to the company’s website, the assets of Signa Prime Selection are valued at €20.4 billion. Prime Development owns assets worth €4.6 billion, the website states.

Several Signa projects, including the construction of a landmark high-rise in the German city of Hamburg, have ground to a halt. Recently, Signa has been looking at selling its partial ownership of the
Chrysler building.

READ ALSO: Can foreigners buy property in Austria?

The leading German department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, which Signa purchased in 2019, filed for bankruptcy in 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the chain decided to close 52 stores at the start of the year.

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