Austrian Corporate & Econ News - 28 Jan - 3 Feb

Monday

Austrian credit card provider Paylife is before a takeover by Swiss Six, Wirtschaftsblatt reported on Monday. Currently Paylife's biggest shareholders Bank Austria, Erste Bank, Bawag and ÖVAG have approved the deal. However, Raiffeisen Zentralbank, another stakeholder in Paylife, has the pre-emptive right to buy the shares but it is expected to also exit Paylife.
Austrian State Printing House (OeSD) closed the first three quarters of its fiscal year with a revenue of EUR 33.8m, up from EUR 31.8m a year earlier. Net profit rose to EUR 4.4m from EUR 3.7m. The company projects at least stable operating development for the fourth quarter.

Tuesday

Ams, former austriamicrosystems, said its net profit soared 132% to EUR 81.9m in 2012. Sales grew 41% to EUR 387.6m as the company benefited from the boom in the smartphone and tablet sector. Ams projects a cooling off of the business development in 2013.
Teak Holz International ended fiscal 2011/12 with EBIT of EUR 8.4m -- growth from EUR 2.4m a year earlier. Group profit soared to EUR 3.9m from EUR 0.4m. The results were boosted by the good tree growth and to the favourable development of the US dollar-euro exchange rate.
Bank Austria will manage its activities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia from Prague as the headquarters in Bratislava will be closed. In addition, Bank Austria's parent, UniCredit, will merge its business in the Baltic countries.

Wednesday

Office furniture maker Bene will launch an international restructuring programme. Some 100 of the 1,300 worldwide jobs will be cut.
C.A.T. oil reported an all-time high order backlog of EUR 392m for 2013 and a total of EUR 530m for the current year and for 2014 and 2015.
Austrian Federal Railways (OeBB) plans to buy 100 new trains from Siemens for EUR 581m. The trains will be used for the S-Bahn network and for regional transport.

Thursday

Pharma company Sanochemia ended fiscal 2011/12 with a net loss of EUR 1.4m, compared with a profit of EUR 0.9m a year earlier. Sales decreased to EUR 30.2m from EUR 34.1m. The company did not give a concrete outlook for the current fiscal year.
Stefan Pierer, CEO of Austrian motorcycle producer KTM, plans to buy Swedish-Italian sector player Husqvarna from BMW, different media reported. With the takeover, KTM will turn into one of the biggest sector players in Europe.
Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) said on Thursday evening it expects a net profit of over EUR 700m for 2012, compared with EUR 968m for 2011. Due to considerable write-downs, the fourth quarter was ended in the red.

Friday

The results of OMV for the fourth quarter of 2012 were burdened by about EUR 120m due to reserves for possible losses at the EconGas subsidiary. In addition, hedges had a negative impact of EUR 36m on the EBIT. The refinery margin worsened compared with the previous quarter.
Machinery group Andritz received a EUR 125m order in Canada. Andritz Hydro will provide parts for new hydropower plant Muskrat Falls.
Austria's unemployment rose by 6.4% year-on-year to 338,421 in January 2013. Under the country's own calculation methodology the unemployment rate stood at 9.1%, up by 0.5 percentage points.
OMV has completed the sale of its 62 gas filling stations in Croatia to local company Crodux. The divestment is part of OMV's strategy to leave the retail market of Croatia and Bosnia.