The federal real estate company races from record to record: for the first time, 265 million euros is paid out as a dividend. The demand for new construction continues, especially for offices, but also for the residential sector.
He is the boss of the state real estate giant BIG, and his word carries a lot of weight. In an interview with the deputy “Krone” editor-in-chief Georg Wailand, Hans-Peter Weiss surprised with an optimistic statement: he does not see any fall in real estate prices, and certainly not in rents. But, says Weiss: “Since autumn of last year, the market has become hesitant, everyone is looking at further developments.”
Apart from individual cases, the successful construction manager (the federal real estate company achieved an operating result of 745 million euros with a turnover of 1.3 billion euros, which enabled the payment of a record dividend of 265 million euros) does not believe in a crisis in the construction industry. Weiss: “We have 186 group companies and last year our investments amounted to 880 million euros. 99.4 percent of our real estate is let, the value of the BIG has increased from 14.9 to 16 billion euros.”
All impressive figures, but hasn’t the whole business slowed down because financing has become more difficult? Weiss: “We were able to complete a number of major projects in 2022, but we continue to spend a lot of money: our sustainability program has been running for ten years and we will be investing a total of two billion euros in the coming period.” future to become CO2 neutral. We are planning 400 photovoltaic installations alone, 130 of which are in the process of being completed. With the projects implemented in PV alone, we can save about 16,000 tons of CO2 by the end of 2023.”
Timber construction has become a new focus. We want to continue this trend. But again the question: if there is no construction crisis, will real estate become cheaper because financing becomes more difficult and people’s purchasing power suffers? The BIG boss: “There is positive population growth, good and medium-sized locations retain their value. But that has always been the case: the value of a property is determined by the location, the location and again the location.”
The need is high in the public sector (e.g. universities, etc.), and the situation in Austria is even more stable than in other countries for residential and office buildings. Some pieces of land are even rising in price, construction costs are rising due to material costs and higher wages. Weiss: “The demand is there!”
The 10 largest construction companies (by turnover in billion euros):
1. Strabag: 15.45, 2. Porr: 5.19, 3. Wienerberger: 3.35, 4. Swietelsky: 3.00,
5. Egger: 2.83, 6. Schmid Holding: 1.93, 7. Habau: 1.63,
8. Binderholz: 1.60, 9. Palfinger: 1.53, 10. Umdasch: 1.41
The largest real estate companies (by turnover):
BIG, UBM, Immofinanz, Buwog, CA Immo, S Immo, Immofinanz
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
