In the wake of the 2007 financial crisis Germany's stock of gross financial assets increased significantly, turning it into the second largest stock among OECD countries after the US.[1] Yet research has shown that the more that the government owns of an enterprise, the more extreme the level of tax avoidance.[2]
List
edit| Company | share | direct Owner | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autobahn GmbH des Bundes | full ownership | Germany | Operator of the German express way network. |
| Deutsche Bahn | full ownership | Germany | |
| DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH | full ownership | Germany | |
| Hapag Lloyd | 23.2% | Hamburg | |
| Airbus/EADS | 12%[3] | 28% total with France and Spain | |
| Commerzbank | 15,6% | KfW | |
| Volkswagen Group | 12.7% | Lower-Saxony | 20% of voting rights |
| KfW Bank | Full Ownership | German government | following assets amounting to a worth of $70.6Bn |
| Deutsche Telekom | 31,9% | Germany over KfW | |
| Deutsche Post | 25.5% | Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action | Assets including DHL and Deutsche Postbank are therefore also partially owned by the government |
| Hypo Real Estate | Full Ownership | SoFFin | Seized by SoFFin in 2009 to restore financial stability to the German housing market |
| Bundesdruckerei | Full Ownership | Federal Print Office, Renationalised in 2013 | |
| RAG AG | Full Ownership | RAG-Stiftung | RAG-Stiftung is a foundation held by the federal republic and the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland |
| Evonik Industries | 58,9%[4] | RAG-Stiftung | RAG-Stiftung is a foundation held by the federal republic and the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Saarland |
| Uniper | Full Ownership | Germany | Emergency rescue in 2022[5] |
Further government ownerships
edit- a range of competing Landesbanken, regionally organised by the Länder, function predominantly to provide wholesale banking, part of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe
- the Sparkassen, also part of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe with more than 400 German SOEs holding more than 40% of bank assets in Germany[6][7]
- Germany owns an approximate 4% stake in British Telecom as 12% of the stake of British Telecom was sold to T-Mobile in early 2015.
Note that many smaller State owned enterprises are owned by individual states of Germany such as TransnetBW and Rothaus (State Brewery of Baden).
On a local and regional level, public transport is often operated by SOE, such as BVB (Berlin), Hochbahn (Hamburg) or LVB (Leipzig). Power generation, water and gas supply were until the 1990s often publicly owned (Stadtwerke) - the picture is much more diverse today, involving often forms of PPP, but with the local governments still exercising considerable control.
References
edit- ^ OECD. "710. Financial balance sheets - consolidated - SNA 2008". Retrieved 27 November 2016.
- ^ Ninow, Leon; Thunecke, Georg; Wagner, Manuel (2021-10-02). "Evidence on Aggressive Tax Avoidance by German State-Owned Enterprises and its Driving Factors". German Politics. 30 (4): 541–561. doi:10.1080/09644008.2020.1814258. ISSN 0964-4008.
- ^ "Revamped Airbus lives up to the European dream". Telegraph.co.uk. 5 January 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2015.
- ^ "RAG wird mehr Evonik-Aktien los". boerse.ard.de. 14 January 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
- ^ "Clear terms for the takeover of the energy company Uniper". Die Bundesregierung. 21 December 2022.
- ^ Hüfner, Felix, "The German Banking System: Lessons from the Financial Crisis", oecd.org, 1 July 2010.
- ^ "Working Papers", oecd.org.