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 genera ...

. 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, inf ...

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 for Austria's public sector. The federal 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 state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

, 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 Internal rent is a form of transfer pricing where a company owning its own premises forces single departments in that company to pay rent for the real estate they use. This is typically organized by one department—the holding department—func ...

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 of the form ''

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

'', 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 ...

. 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 of Austria, states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, th ...

, 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 ...

. 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

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 ...

special-purpose building The Special Purpose was a jazz/funk fusion band from Seattle, Washington. Formed in the summer of 2004, the group - consisting of John Fawcett (drums), Stephen Fogg (8-string guitar An eight-string guitar is a guitar with eight strings, or o ...

s 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 situation with regard to special-purpose buildings. Rents are fixed on a

market-like A market system (or market ecosystem) is any systematic process enabling many market players to offer and demand: helping buyers and sellers interact and make deals. It is not just the price mechanism but the entire system of regulation, qual ...

basis, though with adjustments for special-purpose buildings. Moody's 2009, p. 4

Principal activities

BIG engages in: * Rental of properties, particularly for federal 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 ...

of new buildings and redevelopment of old properties for rental to federal schools and universities, and as official buildings. * Sales of buildings and land. * Property management and maintenance of properties. * Property development and sales of completed projects involving private use. * Facility management, by agreement with tenants. * Restitution, 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 of the real estate owned by BIG was approximately 4.15 billion EUR. 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