Austrian Corporate & Econ News - 14 - 20 Jan

Monday

Moody's has confirmed its Baa1 credit rating on Telekom Austria but reduced its outlook to negative from stable. The agency expects the operating performance of the Telekom to remain weak.
Telekom Austria will continue the business of the recently acquired discounter Yesss!. The latter will concentrate on pre-paid cards, while Telekom Austria's own discount brand Bob will focus on contract clients.
Fund manager C-Quadrat boosted its assets under management by 46% to EUR 4.26bn in 2012. The increase was due to the takeover of UK BCM and Austrian Absolute Portfolio Management (APM).

Tuesday

Erste Group announced on Tuesday that it had to write down EUR 300m from the value of its shareholdings, and especially at Romanian subsidiary BCR. The bank projects a net profit of EUR 450m for 2012. The outlook for Erste's operating profit and risk costs was affirmed.
Construction group Strabag has decided to postpone investments worth millions planned for gravity-based foundations technology for offshore wind facilities. The company has intended to invest in the construction of a plant and in ships transporting the foundations.
C.A.T. oil said it had secured two large-scale orders in Russia. The orders, worth EUR 110m and EUR 80m, are for hydraulic fracturing.
Builder Porr plans to merge its subsidiary Porr Umwelttechnik GmbH (PUT) with Styria-based Tieber Gesellschaft m.b.H.. Porr will control 51% in the new company.
The EC has approved the resale of the stake of Austria's top utility Verbund in electricity distributor Steweag-Steg (SSG) to Energie Steiermark AG.
Refractory materials producer RHI has agreed to buy 43.6% in Indian Orient Refractories Ltd for some EUR 31m.

Wednesday

Austria's inflation rate came in at 2.4% in 2012, down from 3.3% in 2011. In December the inflation was unchanged at 2.8% in annual terms. The euro-zone harmonised consumer price index fell to 2.6% for 2012 from 3.6% in 2011. Wifo and IHS, the country's leading economic institutes, see 2.1% and 1.8% as inflation rate, respectively, for the current year.
Pharma-company Sanochemia said on Wednesday it is currently negotiating over the exclusive distribution of its radiology products in the USA. A contract is expected to be signed in the third quarter. 
Austrian car parts supplier HTI High Tech Industries AG (HTI) plans to seek a new strategic partner. The company will target a revenue of about EUR 110m for 2013 as well as a breakeven profit.

Thursday

Schoeller-Bleckmann Oilfield Equipment (SBO) announced growth of 25.8% in sales to EUR 514m in 2012 thanks to the booming oilfield sector. Pretax profit rose by 40.7% to EUR 110m. 
Vienna Airport registered a record-high of 22,165,794 passengers in 2012, up 5% on the year. The biggest increase was registered in the traffic towards eastern Europe. Cargo volume however decreased by 9.2%. For 2013 the airport operator sees growth of 1% to 2% and sales increase of above EUR 625m.
Real estate company CA Immo AG wants to dispose of completed projects in order to improve its capital ratio. The proceeds will be used for redeeming credits and other liabilities.
Oberbank ended 2012 with a pretax profit of EUR 132m, or with an increase of 5%. The bank envisages to widen its branch network once again in 2013. The focus will be on Austria and Bavaria.

Friday

Real estate company Conwert announced write-offs worth EUR 187m for 2012, which will result in a net loss of EUR 137m for the year. The company does not project write-offs in 2013 and thus will be managed to end the year in the black.
Oil and gas group OMV has agreed to divest of its obligatory oil inventories subsidiary to ELG. The deal will have a positive one-off effect of some EUR 440m on OMV's EBIT. OMV Refining & Marketing controls 55.6% in ELG.
Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska acquired further 0.3% in Austrian builder Strabag from the latter's CEO - Hans-Peter Haselsteiner. In November 2012 Deripaska secured 17% in Strabag for EUR 19.25 per share.