bauMax AG#
bauMax AG, the largest building materials retail chain in Austria (29 % market share), founded in 1976 by K. Essl. With its 74 chain stores in Austria and 29 in other countries and with 1,300 staff, the enterprise had a turnover of ATS 8.9 bn in 1998. The firm is listed at the stock exchange; it has been active in Hungary and the Czech Republic since 1992, in Slovenia since 1993 and in Slovakia since 1994. Like Schoemer HG (retailing of construction materials), bauMax is part of a holding company, which developed out of the coal merchant F. Schoemer's business, founded in Klosterneuburg in 1923.