Austrian Economic News - Week 10 -16 Sep

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Monday

Steel group voestalpine plans to close its saw band steel production in Traismauer, Lower Austria, and to transfer it in Kematen an der Ybbs. All employees will be able to move to the nearby location. The decision will trigger investments of some EUR 113m.
Verbund, Austria's leading power supplier, announced at the start of the week that it had launched the Casimcea I wind park on Romania's Black Sea coast. The park will produce 240 GWh of electricity per year, enough to supply around 155,000 households.

Tuesday 

Vienna Airport said on Tuesday it had handled 2.1m passengers in August, an increase of 3% compared with August 2011. Freight volumes, however, decreased by 10.3%.
Insurer Uniqa announced that as part of its plans for a re-IPO, it has carried out measures for streamlining its structure and for making the firm more suitable for the stock market. At the same time, the company's supervisory board approved the increase of the capital to EUR 214m.

Wednesday

Competitors and interest groups have filed with the European Commission a questionnaire with more than 200 points concerning the announced e-mobility joint venture between Siemens Austria and Verbund, daily Der Standard reported on Wednesday. The JV plans to build 4,500 charging stations by 2020.
Erste Group revealed that it expects to be able to have an equity capital ratio of up to 13% as of 2013, compared with the 8% required by Austrian regulations currently.
Steel group Voestalpine disclosed its plans to boost capital by 3.4m shares, or 2%, in order to cater for employee stock option programmes.

Thursday

Toll systems specialist Kapsch TrafficCom, machinery group Andritz and fibre producer Lenzing are the three listed Austrian companies which have performed best during the last three crisis-hit years, a study of Contrast-Mangement Consulting showed on Thursday. The companies benefited from niche positioning and technology leadership.
Vaccine maker Intercell announced that its vaccine against Japanese Enzephalitis has been approved for marketing in India. It will be produced by local partner Biological E. Ltd.
Office furniture producer Bene said that it had attracted EUR 2.8m in orders in the Middle East between May and July.

Friday

Austrian lingerie company Wolford doubled its net loss to EUR 3.2m in the first quarter of 2012/13, from EUR 1.8m a year earlier. Sales increased by 4.1% to EUR 33.1m. The results were burdened by the opening of new stores, the firm said on Friday.
Austria's annual inflation rate rose to 2.2% in August from 2.1% in July boosted by fuel prices, Statistik Austria reported. The euro-zone HCPI came in at 2.3%.
The WAB Gruppe, around Andreas Weißenbacher, CEO of BWT, filed a mandatory takeover offer for the water technology company. WAB, which has more than 30% in BWT, proposed EUR 16 per share.
On Friday oil and gas group OMV said it agreed to divest 15% in Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) to Slovak Eustream. The deal price was not revealed.
Fibre producer Lenzing officially launched the construction of a new production site in Lenzing. The company plans to invest EUR 130m and to open 110 jobs.
The supervisory board of utility Verbund is said to have approved the sale of the company's stake in power distributor Steweag-Steg (SSG) to Energie Steiermark AG, according to media reports from Friday.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation is said to be interested in the takeover of the petrol filling stations of OMV in Croatia, daily Vecernji list wrote. The Austrian company wants to withdraw from its retail business in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Strauss group will have to file a mandatory takeover offer for builder Porr, the Austrian Takeover Commission decided. However, as the increase of Strauss' stake in Porr was implemented under the condition that it would not have to make such an offer, it is still unclear whether the deal will be carried out.