Editorial:

Associations serve their members and are a suitable organisational formal for more small-scale operations. TÜV AUSTRIA’s operational business went beyond “small-scale” a long time ago and so now these activities are being spun off into share companies. The Association will continue unchanged and is 100% owner of the joint stock companies.

With TÜV’s turnover at almost € 60 million and over 600 employees the business can no longer be managed in an optimum fashion solely via the Association byelaws. For this reason we selected the route of forming subsidiaries in the context of a joint stock company. This will allow us to make a clear distinction between oversight and operational responsibility (Board of Directors, Supervisory Board), to clearly delineate the liability situation and provide codetermination with one-third parity representation by the works council in the supervisory board.

The Association idea of serving members is going to be more difficult now in the sense that the customers and the members are no longer identical. The responsibility for a business of TÜV AUSTRIA’s dimension with 600 employees under its care calls for a clear commercial orientation as a prerequisite for long-term assured survival of the company through investment, diversification and growth. And ultimately a stock company also allows cooperation under conditions that are clear in terms of legal and liability requirements. And not least a clear delineation of risks is of existential importance for companies. We believe that TÜV has taken an important step towards the future by spinning off its activities into subsidiaries, a step that others took a long time ago and which creates room for manoeuvre which will be available for use at the necessary or opportune time and, I am convinced, that the most important capital of TÜV, its experts, employees and its management, will all draw renewed high levels of motivation from this step.

The Association is not obsolete, it is simply taking a step back – we would in no way want to do without the history of the TÜV Association, which is a success story and one with which it was able to take the extremely difficult step of passing from semi-nationalised status to the free market. But it should also not be a constraining cage unable to provide sufficient space for this prosperous development – this is the point and purpose of this step.

So, here’s to TÜV AUSTRIA HOLDING AG!

Komm.Rat Dipl.-Ing. Johann Marihart
Chairman of the Supervisory Board and CEO of TÜV Austria