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]
| 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 | 100% | following assets amounting to a worth of $70.6Bn | |
| Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile | 14.5% | Germany | (directly) |
| 17.4% | KfW | (indirectly) | |
| Deutsche Post | 25.5% | KfW | Assets including DHL and Deutsche Postbank are therefore also partially owned by the government |
| Hypo Real Estate | 100% | SoFFin | Seized by SoFFin in 2009 to restore financial stability to the German housing market |
| Bundesdruckerei | 100% | Federal Print Office, Renationalised in 2013 | |
| RAG AG | 100% | 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 | 99% | Germany | Emergency rescue in 2022 [5] |
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.
The economy of Luxembourg is largely dependent on the banking, steel, and industrial sectors. Citizens of Luxembourg enjoy the highest per capita gross domestic product in the world, according to an IMF estimate in 2022.
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by a national or provincial government, by an executive order or an act of legislation, in order to earn profit for the government, control monopoly of the private sector entities, provide products and services to citizens at a lower price, implement government policies, and/or to deliver products & services to the remote locations of the country. The national government or provincial government has majority ownership over these state owned enterprises. These state owned enterprises are also known as public sector undertakings in some countries. Defining characteristics of SOEs are their distinct legal form and possession of financial goals and developmental objectives. SOEs are government entities established to pursue financial objectives and developmental goals.
A country's gross government debt is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit occurs when a government's expenditures exceed revenues. Government debt may be owed to domestic residents, as well as to foreign residents. If owed to foreign residents, that quantity is included in the country's external debt.
The socialist market economy (SME) is the economic system and model of economic development employed in the People's Republic of China. The system is a market economy with the predominance of public ownership and state-owned enterprises. The term "socialist market economy" was introduced by Jiang Zemin during the 14th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1992 to describe the goal of China's economic reforms.
A savings bank is a financial institution whose primary purpose is accepting savings deposits and paying interest on those deposits.
Mahmoud Mohieldin, is an economist with more than 30 years of experience in international finance and development. He is the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt. He is an Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund. He has been the United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda since February 2020. He was the Minister of Investment of Egypt from 2004-2010, and most recently, served as the World Bank Group Senior Vice President for the 2030 Development Agenda, United Nations Relations and Partnerships. His roles at the World Bank also included Managing Director, responsible for Human Development, Sustainable Development, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Finance and Private Sector Development, and the World Bank Institute; World Bank President's Special Envoy on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Post-2015 Development Agenda, and Financing for Development; and Corporate Secretary and Executive Secretary to the Development Committee of the World Bank Group's Board of Governors. Dr Mohieldin also served on several Boards of Directors in the Central Bank of Egypt and the corporate sector. He was a member of the Commission on Growth and Development and was selected for the Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in 2005. His professional experience extends into the academic arena as a Professor of Economics and Finance at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University and as a Visiting Professor at several renowned Universities in Egypt, Korea, the UAE, the UK and the USA. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of Durham University Business School. He also holds leading positions in national, regional and international research centres and associations. He has authored numerous publications and articles in leading journals in the fields of economics, finance and development.
The Association of German Public Banks is a leading association within the German banking sector, bringing together most of the German public banking sector except the local-level savings banks. Its membership includes 63 banks, including the Landesbanks that are also members of the Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV) and form part of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, and promotional and development banks owned by the Federal Republic of Germany or the individual German federal states.
Banking in Germany is a highly leveraged industry, as its average leverage ratio as of 11 October 2008 is 52 to 1 ; its short-term liabilities are equal to 60% of the German GDP or 167% of its national debt.
In German-speaking jurisdictions, Landesbank, lit. 'bank of the Land', generally refers to a bank operating within a territorial subdivision that has autonomy but not full sovereignty. It is occasionally translated as "provincial bank".
The Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband is the association of German savings banks and the apex entity of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the European Union's second-largest financial services group with 2.4 trillion euros combined assets as of end-2021. Germany's savings banks, owned by local governments, play a major role in the country's economy, together operating some 15,860 branches and employing about 284,800 people.
DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale is the central provider of asset management and capital market solutions of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe. It is registered in both Frankfurt and Berlin, with main operational headquarters in Frankfurt. It traces its origins to the Deutsche Girozentrale, established in 1918 as a hub for payments within the German savings banks system.
An offshore financial centre (OFC) is defined as a "country or jurisdiction that provides financial services to nonresidents on a scale that is incommensurate with the size and the financing of its domestic economy."
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A public bank is a bank, a financial institution, in which a state, municipality, or public actors are the owners. It is an enterprise under government control. Prominent among current public banking models are the Bank of North Dakota, the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe in Germany, and many nations’ postal bank systems.
A state-owned enterprise is a legal entity that undertakes commercial activities on behalf of an owner government. Their legal status varies from being a part of government to stock companies with a state as a regular or dominant stockholder. There is no standard definition of a government-owned corporation (GOC) or state-owned enterprise (SOE), although the two terms are often used interchangeably. The defining characteristics are that they have a distinct legal shape and they are established to operate in commercial affairs.
The OECD G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project is an OECD/G20 project to set up an international framework to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises ("MNEs") using base erosion and profit shifting tools. The project, led by the OECD's Committee on Fiscal Affairs, began in 2013 with OECD and G20 countries, in a context of financial crisis and tax affairs. Currently, after the BEPS report has been delivered in 2015, the project is now in its implementation phase, 116 countries are involved including a majority of developing countries. During two years, the package was developed by participating members on an equal footing, as well as widespread consultations with jurisdictions and stakeholders, including business, academics and civil society. And since 2016, the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS provides for its 140 members a platform to work on an equal footing to tackle BEPS, including through peer review of the BEPS minimum standards, and monitoring of implementation of the BEPS package as a whole.
Russian government ownership of various companies and organizations, collectively known as state-owned enterprises (SOEs), still play an important role in the national economy. The approximately 4,100 enterprises that have some degree of state ownership accounted for 39% of all employment in 2007. In 2007, SOEs controlled 64% of the banking sector, 47% of the oil and gas sector, and 37% of the utility sector.
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The Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe is a network of public banks that together form the largest financial services group in Germany and in all of Europe. Its name refers to local government-controlled savings banks that are known in German as Sparkasse, plural Sparkassen. Its activity is overwhelmingly located in Germany.
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