Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H or BIG is a quasi-governmental company in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, which manages Austrian publicly owned

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

. Moody's 2009, p. 3 BIG is the central provider of space for several

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infra ...

functions such as schools, universities, prisons, courts and police stations. BIG 2008, p. 3 It rents out buildings to the government entities using them, carries out renovations and new investments, and handles sales of buildings and land no longer in use by the public sector.

History

BIG was created by law in 1992, with the objective of centralizing

property management Property management is the operation, control, maintenance, and oversight of real estate and physical property. This can include residential, commercial, and land real estate. Management indicates the need for real estate to be cared for and monit ...

for Austria's public sector. The

federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

real-estate property had previously been managed by the ''Federal Buildings Directorate Vienna'' () in the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

, and in the other provinces by the ''Federal Buildings Administrations'' (). The aim was to improve the cost-efficiency of various government departments. The underlying premise for this system of internal rent was that requiring departments to pay for and account for their usage of buildings would force them to rationalise their use of space and allow surplus space to be put to alternative use or sold.

Organizational form

BIG is a

legal entity In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...

of the form ''

Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung A ''Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung'' (, abbreviated GmbH and also GesmbH in Austria; ) is a type of Juristic person, legal entity common in Germany, Austria, Switzerland (where it is equivalent to a ''société à responsabilité limit� ...

'', shortly ''GmbH'', which is a form of

limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...

. The sole owner of BIG is the

Republic of Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ci ...

, and the company's activities cannot be considered separate from

government policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and often implemented by programs. Public p ...

. Moody's 2009, p. 1 Any changes in ownership would require a prior amendment to the law by simple majority.

Economy and market

Unlike other companies close to the Austrian government, BIG acts on the free real estate market,

BIG Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * ''Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show * ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...

but its business activities are restricted to the Republic of Austria. The Austrian government is dependent on BIG, since it has a ''de facto''

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

on special-purpose buildings such as educational facilities and prisons. BIG 2008, p. 29 The Austrian government entities—such as ministries and universities—that rent these buildings, account for 98% of BIG:s rental income, Therefore, BIG and the Austrian public sector may be inferred to be in a

bilateral monopoly A bilateral monopoly is a market structure consisting of both a monopoly (a single seller) and a monopsony (a single buyer). Overview In a standard monopoly structure, the monopolist sells to multiple buyers with no market power, thereby giving t ...

situation with regard to special-purpose buildings. Rents are fixed on a market-like basis, though with adjustments for special-purpose buildings. Moody's 2009, p. 4

Principal activities

BIG engages in: *

Rental Renting, also known as hiring or letting, is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for a ...

of properties, particularly for

schools, universities and official buildings. *

Construction Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...

of new buildings and

redevelopment Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space. Description Variations on redevelopment include: ...

of old properties for rental to federal schools and universities, and as official buildings. * Sales of buildings and land. *

Property management Property management is the operation, control, maintenance, and oversight of real estate and physical property. This can include residential, commercial, and land real estate. Management indicates the need for real estate to be cared for and monit ...

and

maintenance Maintenance may refer to: Biological science * Maintenance of an organism * Maintenance respiration Non-technical maintenance * Alimony, also called ''maintenance'' in British English * Champerty and maintenance, two related legal doct ...

of properties. * Property development and sales of completed projects involving private use. *

Facility management Facility management or facilities management (FM) is a professional management discipline focused on the efficient and effective delivery of logistics and other support services related to real property and buildings. It encompasses multiple disc ...

, by agreement with tenants. *

Restitution The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery, in which a court orders the defendant to ''give up'' their gains to the claimant. It should be contrasted with the law of compensation, the law of loss-based recovery, in which a court ...

, sale or compensation of certain properties looted from Jews under the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

and still owned by the

Real estate portfolio

In 2008, the

book value In accounting, book value is the value of an asset according to its balance sheet account balance. For assets, the value is based on the original cost of the asset less any depreciation, amortization or impairment costs made against the asset. T ...

of the real estate owned by BIG was approximately 4.15

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English. * 1,000,000,000,000, i. ...

EUR The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens ...

. The real estate portfolio consisted of: Moody's 2009, p. 2. Figures from 2008. * Schools and universities (70.5%) * Prisons, police stations and court houses (27%) * Residential property (2%) * Other (0.5%)

Notes

References

* * * * *

External links

* - Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft {{Authority control Real estate companies of Austria Government-owned companies of Austria Companies based in Vienna