“I am the glass maker from Austria”, says the principal of the firm, Georg J. Riedel, when he introduces himself abroad.

Riedel Glass exists since 250 year, and operates in the 11th generation today.

The father of Georg J. Riedel had to restart the business after the second world war with nothing. He even had to jump out of the train in Tirol in 1946, to escape from war captivity.

It took some time until the old success of Riedel Glass returned. In 1973 started the world success with mouth-blown glasses of the series called “Sommeliers”.

The secret of success was the production of glasses which never had been made before. Glasses which were able to “let the wine talk”.

Riedel Glass employes 1.600 workers in 100 different countries.

The two main reasons of the dropping sales in Germany are the discontinuation of the first-home buyer allowance, and the lift in value-added tax.

Building a house in Germany became 50.000 EUR more expensive, which decreased the number of new buildings by 50 percent.

Now Internorm hopes German politicans are going to change some of their anticommercial laws.

Internorm is doing much better in other countries like Italy (increase of 20 percent), but also in Eastern Europe the business is going fabulous.

Internorm has a market share in Upper Austria of 31 percent. In whole Austria the percentage amounts 15 percent. Internorm is the market leader in Austria and in Europe, and has 1.689 employees. The exports amount 45 percent.

Four years ago the provincial government of Tirol decided to sell the website, which offers online bookings for Austrian holidays, but the dot-com bubble bursted and the sale was canceled.

Now should be the right time for a new try to sell Tiscover, but before Tiscover needs a cash injection. Otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to receive an high income of the selling. “Without any cash injection it would be the best to close Tiscover”, even says one tourism insider of Tirol.

The manager of Tiscover thinks different. “Tiscover is doing well”, he says. In 2006 the website made a profit of 242.000 EUR.

The other side of the coin: Tiscover has a deficit carried forward of 4,4 mio EUR, but the capital reserve amounts 9,9 mio EUR. Tiscover has 120 employees and should be sold to a strategic partner.

This years sales should increase from 57,2 up to 61 mio EUR.

The Japanese deal should make the dream come true to open the whole market in Japan for the car supplier Hoffmann Elektrokohle AG (HEAG).

Already today the car supplier from Austria has a foot in the Asian market. The company operates a factory in China.

Now Ardex invested 8 mio EUR in the extension of the Austrian location. Also the export should be increased.

Two new buildings were erected for the production process. One already existing building was extended.

Ardex manufactures special building materials for the range of application for slab, mortice, floor and wall. The most important products of Ardex are slab glue, mortice bulk and silicone, as well as spackling compound for the floor, Epoxid industry floors, and glue for parquet flooring.

The most important countries for the export are Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, Cyprus and Greece.

Ardex has 137 employees in Austria, and locations in more than 50 countries with 1780 co-workers. The sales of the whole combine amount 490 mio EUR. The sales of Ardex in Austria are a well protected secret.

Small and high-priced merchants benefit by the increased consumer acceptance. They are the true winners of the new sales record.

Not only the sales increased in the Austrian fashion business, but also the amount of fashion shops. Notable: not the big fashion chains opened the shops. The majority were small merchants.

Fussl is also thinking to open several shops abroad. “But we have no pressure to do that”, says Fussl boss Karl Mayr junior. “The Austrian market is tough and highly competitive enough”, he confirms.

Fussl has its headquaters in the village “Ort im Innkreis”, which is located close to the town of Ried, in the federal state of Upper Austria. The textile and fashion chain has 77 chain stores at the moment, and sees potential for 120 stores in whole Austria.

The expansion is going to start this week in Lower Austrias Bruck an der Leitha. Chain stores in Gänserndorf, Wiener Neustadt, Stockerau (also Lower Austria), Linz (Upper Austria), Bad Vöslau (Lower Austria) and Deutschlandsberg (Styria) should follow.

Swietelsky has 6.600 employees and 1,11 billions EUR construction benefit. The enterprise from Upper Austrias provincial capital Linz has confirmed the deal to the federal competition authority.

Now Swietelsky and Petri Bahnbau have to wait for the decision of the federal competition authority.

Petri Bahnbau has 50 employees and sales in the value of 6,43 mio EUR. The profit of the last business year amount 612.000 EUR.

Umdasch is the world market leader in formwork construction. Reason of the new record is the contribution on the construction works of the world biggest building: the Burj tower in Dubai.

The tower has a height of 800 metres. For the comparison: Austrias highest building, the Millenium tower in Vienna, has 150 metres.

The export quota of Umdasch amounts 90%. This means the Lower Austrian company is one of Austrias strongest export enterprises.

The secret of success: Umdasch manufactures high quality products in high-wage countries like Austria, and sells its products together with service performances.

© Photographer: Franz Pfluegl | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Gössl now started to manufacture bicycles. One Gössl bicycle cost 1880 EUR. The bicycle is made in retro style and has an electric motor.

“Gössl Rad” is the name of the new product and available in all chain stores of Gössl. The bicycle with the electric motor can go 50 km with a speed of 25 kilometers per hour (kmph).The core business of Gössl stays the production of traditional clothes. Last year 100.000 were manufactured. Gössl has 23 chain stores in Austria and 10 partner shops in Austria, Bavaria and the south of Tirol. Last years sales had the value of 16 mio EUR.

New shops should rise, and also the original company building should be extended.

The group made an increase in turnover by 23 percent last year. This means from 51 mio EUR to 64 mio EUR.

New shoe shops should rise in the Eastern part of Europe. There should be 10 Högl shops in Russia, one in Budapest and another one in Bratislava.

Russia is the most important market after Austria and Germany. The Shoe Fashion Group is 100 percent in family property. 1,6 mio shoes were produced last year.

The new TV channel of Red Bull should improve the trade mark of the energy drink. Red Bull TV should have its focus on sport events and entertainment programs.

In that way Red Bull wants to find new customers in the USA, Europe and Asia.

Andreas Gall is not the only one in Red Bull TV who has its past in the Austrian Broadcasting. Also Gerhard Weis, Teddy Podgorski junior and stage director Chris Raiber were working for the Austrian Broadcasting before.

Not only apprentices like to go to the company of Julius Blum in the little town of Höchst, which is located close to the Swiss border. During this years summer holiday 360 students are doing a traineeship.

Blum has 4.787 employees world wide. 3.818 of them are employed in Austria. In Austria also 219 apprentices receive their apprentice training.

The fittings manufacturer from Vorarlberg was able to increase its sales in the business year 2006/07 by 12,6 percent.

Vivatis belongs to the combine of the Raiffeisenlandesbank (RLB) Upper Austria. The Austrian newspaper “Neues Volksblatt” reports about the deal. The buying price was not mentioned.

Weinbergmaier is a family enterprise and has a long connection to Vivatis. The share of Vivatis ensures the location in Upper Austria, a swiftly expansion, and 50 working places.

Weinbergmaier exists since 1969 and has specialized in typical Austrian dishes.

The company belongs to Akhim Türesin. A Turkish man with Austrian passport, who founded his compamy ten years ago.

The license to produce merchandising items for the Football Euro next year should bring sales in the value from 25 to 30 million EUR. How much was spent for the merchandising package? Türesin don’t wanted to tell, but he came out on top against big competitors like the Italian textile combine Rici.

“The inquiries are enormous. Even people in Japan and USA are interested in our products”, says Türesin.

IPM has annual sales of 140 mio EUR.

The domestic fashion company gets the second time within few months a new main proprietor. The future of Schöps is unclear. A press conference should bring some light into the deal.

Arques Industries AG is a participations holding who is specialized to recapitalize mid-size businesses.

Socialdemocratic leader Gusenbauer: “A day with great joy”. Peoples Party leader Molterer: “very interesting”. Commerce chamber chairman Leitl: “a win-win situation”.

VÖEST Alpine aspires 50 percent plus one share. Shareholders will receive a cash-offer of 69 EUR. VÖEST Alpine don’t want to make a “dramatic capital increase”.

If the steel combine receives all permissions, the deal should be finnish around the 20th May.

Purchases in Armenia and Kazakhstan are reviewed at the moment.

Mega sales for Raiffeisen in 2007 did not satisfy the company. There are rumours about a capital increase over the stock exchange market. According to the opinions of analyst the increase could amount a sum of 1,2 billion EUR.

But there is also a plan for the extension of the business in Eastern Europe. Already this year 560 mio EUR were invested in Russia and Ukraine. Also Armenia and Kazakhstan are new options for investments. Raiffeisen already has a 20% share in an Armenian bank.

Raiffeisen has 12,1 mio customers in 17 Eastern European countries and 52.000 employees.

There are 50.000 takovers in Austria every year. 60% of all family enterprises think seriously about generation change.

Every fifth has not so much time left to prepare for the takeover. The generation change has to be finished this year.

12% of the senior partners in Austria think their posterity has not the abilities to lead their business.

The Austrian Industrialist Mirko Kovats finnished his biggest purchase for the A-Tec Industries, buying the French company with 450 co-workers and more than 300 mio EUR sales. Only the cartel authority must allow the deal in the following weeks.

There is silence about the buying price at the moment.

Gindre has its registered office in Lyon and factories in France, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain and the USA. Gindre counts to one of the leading companies in Europe of semi-finished product and components for the electrical industry.

Gindre Duchavany S.A. was in family possession since 1823.

The “Premium Outlet Center Leoville” in the South of Vienna opened in spring 2005 and had to file for bankruptcy recently. New managers should make a new start with radical changes now.

The main target is to have 1,5 mio well funded customers a year. The new managers also aim for the goal of an one hundred percent occupancy rate. No salesroom should be empty. The outlet center never had an occupancy rate of more than 60%.

The first time in company history, the foreign business overtops the domestic market by sales of 46 mio EUR (domestic market 44 mio EUR).

Since 125 years the Austrian family business Kotanyi is classified as expert in the sector of spices. The company is located in the Lower Austrian town of Wolkersdorf and offers jobs for 240 people.

By 150 percent, Russia was the country with the strongest groth in sales last year. Products in the value of five million EUR were sold. Hungary had an increase of three percent to 14 mio EUR. The plus in Czech Republic amounts 14 percent, in Poland 10 percent.

For this years sales the company target a sum of 100 mio EUR.

The commission amounts the construction and management of 300 km motorway. The commission volume is estimate at 2 billion EUR. But Strabag makes a backtrack, and the head of government of the Bosnian Serbs Milorad Dodik has signed an declaration of intention with Strabag competitor Alpine-Mayreder.

The reason of Strabags disagreement with the government of Bosnia was the wish of Strabag to build only lucrative motorway connections. Bosnia wanted Strabag to do the whole motorway network. Strabag replies: “We don’t see flows of traffic. Only two motorway connections are realisable.”

The Bosnian Serbs want to assigned the order only in the whole package. It seems Alpine-Mayreder would accept that.

Five objects with office and retail real estates with a total of 110.000 square metres floor space in Czechs capital Prague and the second biggest city Brno, were bought in the beginning of this month. Two third of the new acquisitions are offices.

Altogether the Czech Republic portfolio of Immoeast includes now 79 objects with 1,29 mio square metres floor space. Czech Republic has 16 percent share of the total inventory of Immoeast. Just in January the company bought three objects of the BB Centrum in Prague with a value of 160 mio EUR.

Especially exports to the Arabic area, Eastern Europe and Africa made the sales accelerate skywards.

Spitz will finish the business year 2007/08 with a new sales record. An increase of 6,2% up to 218,70 mio EUR is estimated. The exports increased up to 10% to 77 mio EUR. “The sales of fruit juices in the Arabic area is very successful”, says Spitz boss Walter Schörnthaler. Since two years now Spitz is on the spot on the Arabic market.

Also the Spitz enegery drink “Power Horse” made high increases. The sales increased up to 20 percent to 28,90 mio EUR. The energy drink is very popular in Eastern Europe (Romania) and Africa (Nigeria). According to informations of the Spitz boss his company is already the market leader in three countries (Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Nigeria). Enegery drink “Power Horse” was sold last year 60 mio times in 36 countries.

SPAR boss Gerhard Drexel is satisfied with 2006: “It was a good year. SPAR was able to grow and beat the earning goals.”

SPAR group Austria increased the sales by 9,2 percent up to 7,97 billion EUR. SPAR made 4,66 billion EUR sales in Austria. The activities of SPAR in countries like Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic and Croatia become more and more important.

The boss of SPAR promise new supermarkets in Austria this year. The quantity should amount 20 to 25.

By a market share of 2,1% the company takes the fourth place in Slovenia. This is very much remarkable, because the period of presence for Hofer in Slovenia is just one year.

The market leader in Slovenia is still Mercator with a market share of 45,80%. SPAR takes the second place, but lost 1,2% down to 20,50% last year. The supermarket chain on the third place is Tus with 16,40%.

The first pursuer for Hofer on the fifth place is the French supermarket chain Leclerc by 1,9% market share.

At the moment Hofer runs 28 supermarkets in Slovenia. 60 further Hofer supermarkets should come in the next several years.

While the business in Austria was 7 percent smaller than the year before, the sales abroad increased up to 40 percent. The sum of the sales abroad in 2006 made out 2,36 billion EUR.

For the domestic business 2006 was not a big year. The cancellation of the investment increase bonus was still experienced.

The Raiffeisen-Leasing-Group expect a solid result for this year. The increase should make out the same height as the one of the general economic growth.The share of the market of the Raiffeisen-Leasing-Group in Austria is located on the third position. Only BA-CA Leasing and “Erste Bank” are ahead on the two top positions.