!!!Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG

Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, important Austrian metal-processing 
enterprise, developed in 1934 out of the merger of 
Austro-Daimler-Puchwerke AG and Steyr-Werke AG. In 1830, Leopold 
Werndl founded a rifle factory in Steyr, which was turned into an arms 
factory ("Oesterreichische Waffenfabriksgesellschaft") by his son 
Josef  Werndl in 1869. The production of armaments was replaced by 
bicycle production from 1894 and automobile production from 1918; from 
1923 the company was called Steyr-Werke AG. The Oesterreichische 
Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (founded in 1899) at Wiener Neustadt had 
taken up the production of automobiles in 1900, and the Johann 
Puch-Erste steiermaerkische Fahrrad-Fabriks-AG (Johann ( Puch, Johann) 
in Graz, which manufactured motorcycles and automobiles, was also 
founded in 1899. The two companies merged in 1928 and formed the 
Austro-Daimler-Puchwerke AG.

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During the Second World War, the company again produced armaments 
under the name Reichswerke Hermann Goering (32,000 employees), and new 
factories were opened in Graz-Thondorf (Styria) and St. Valentin 
(Lower Austria). In the mid-1960s the company produced passenger 
vehicles, lorries, off-road vehicles, tractors, agricultural 
machinery, ball and roller bearings, shooting equipment, motorcycles 
and motor-scooters, mopeds, bicycle, tools and engines, one-third of 
which was exported. With production sites at Steyr, Letten, Graz, 
Vienna-Simmering and St. Valentin, the production of lorries 
(80 % were made for MAN in 1989,  Steyr Nutzfahrzeuge AG), buses, 
tractors, subcompact vehicles (until 1973), all-terrain vehicles 
(Haflinger 1959-1974, Pinzgauer from 1971-2000), wheeled and tracked 
vehicles, roller bearings, weapons, motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles 
(all two-wheeled vehicles discontinued in 1987) and around 17,000 
employees, the company was the third largest in Austria in 1980 ( 
Industry) after VOEST-Alpine AG ( VOEST) and  Vereinigte 
Edelstahlwerke AG. It was restructured and divided up into several 
enterprises (Steyr Antriebstechnik etc.), and had only 8,900 employees 
in 1991. Throughout the 1990s various production segments were spun 
off by  Creditanstalt-Bankverein AG, the majority shareholder. 
Production of ball and roller bearings was sold to the Swedish company 
SKF, bus production to the Swedish Volvo group and tractors to the 
American Case group. In 1998 the entire Creditanstalt shares 
(66.8 % of Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG) was sold to  Magna Holding AG 
with the exception of Steyr-Mannlicher ( guns). Magna Holding bought 
up further shares from small shareholders and in the same year the 
production of heavy weapons was sold to an investment group (H. M. 
Malzacher) through a management buyout. The Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG 
group was incorporated into the Magna Holding AG group; the newly 
structured Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG concentrates on the production of 
driving systems. In 1998 the company had 933 employees and a turnover 
of ATS 3.79 billion. The firm  Steyr-Daimler-Puch 
Fahrzeugtechnik AG & Co. KG (SFT), headquartered in Graz, is a 
separate subsidiary of Magna Holding AG.

!Literature
H. Seper, 100 Jahre Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, 1964; R. 
Mayrhofer, Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, 1989.


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