OMV - History

History

OMV (ÖMV as it was known then) originated in 1956 as a formed out of “Sowjetischen Mineralölverwaltung” (SMV). Four years later, in 1960, the company opened the Schwechat refinery near Vienna.

At the end of 1987, 15% of OMV was privatized, making it the first public listing of a state-owned company in Austria. In 1989, OMV acquired a 25% stake in plastics group, Borealis.

In 1990 the company opened its first filling station in Vienna-Auhof on 24 June 1990.

The International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) of Abu Dhabi acquired an initial 19.6% interest in the group at the end of 1994. The following year, the group changed its name from “ÖMV” to "OMV" because the umlaut on the “Ö” is not commonly used in many languages. In the early 2000s, OMV expanded into Eastern Europe, by acquiring around 10% of Hungarian oil company, MOL and in 2003 it acquired the upstream division of Germany’s Preussag Energie, expanding its filling station networks.

In 2004, OMV became the market leader in Central and Eastern Europe following the acquisition of 51% of Romanian oil and gas group, Petrom which constitutes the largest acquisition in OMV’s history.

In the same year, OMV increased its share capital, meaning that more than 50% of the company’s shares were in free float for the first time. Following the sale of 50% of the subsidiary company Agrolinz Melamine International GmbH to IPIC in 2005, the Borealis group was taken over in full together with IPIC.

In 2006, OMV acquired a 34% stake in Turkish oil group Petrol Ofisi - the largest Austrian investment in Turkey to date. In the same year, the board members of OMV and Verbund, the Austrian utility group announced plans for a merger. However, this collapsed due to resistance from Austrian MPs.

OMV increased its stake in Hungarian oil group MOL to 20.2% in 2007. OMV then sold its entire stake in March 2009 after MOL rejected a takeover bid in 2008 and the European Commission imposed tough restrictions for an approval of the deal. OMV acquired the stake held by Dogan Holding in Petrol Ofisi in late 2010, which further increased its stake in the company to 95.75%. In 2011, this stake was increased again to 97%.

In September 2011, the company unveiled its revised corporate strategy, ‘profitable growth’. According to the strategy, OMV intends to increasingly divert its investments from the refining and filling-station business to the upstream business (Exploration & Production), where two thirds of future investments will be made. OMV’s plan is to increase the E&P weighting in the overall portfolio from 35% to 55% by 2021. At a regional level, the investment focus is to be on the Caspian Sea, Africa and the Middle East. The group is currently evaluating the sale of its 45% stake in German refining network Bayernoil.