Austrian Industrial Management Corporation

   Österreichische Industrie Aktien Gesellschaft

   (ÖIAG)

   As a heavy shareholder in Austrian nationalized industry and banks, the government in 1970 set up the ÖIAG as a holding company to oversee these complex operations. The conglomerate also paid dividends: in 2002 it distributed 300 million euros to stockowners. Jobholders in ÖIAG firms were ultimately government employees. Numbering at this time around 170,000, they were part of an operation that was Austria’s single largest employer in Austria itself. The ÖIAG also supervised the merger and restructuring of some of Austria’s heavy industrial infrastructure, primarily iron and steel in 1972. Its managerial responsibilities also extended to monitoring Austria’s competitive position in the world market. To this end, the ÖIAG initiated rounds of personnel layoffs in the heavy metals sector after 1980. It also arranged the sale of industrial assets. ÖIAG firms have been caught up in the wave of privatization that accelerated during the chancellorship of Wolfgang Schüssel. The first of these companies to separate itself from government oversight was the steel manufacturer Böhler-Uddeholm, in which the ÖIAG relinquished all of its shares in 2003.