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Glossar
"A" Modell
Financing model for German freeway widening projects conducted in multiple stages and undertaken by private operators. Such projects include adding extra lanes and maintaining, operating and financing segments of freeway. Alongside a start-up loan, the concession holder is paid all road-use charges collected from trucks for use of the freeway segment. The fees are reinvested in construction.Asset management
Asset management means all activities involved in managing buildings and properties. This includes rent accounting, tenant administration, utility billing and support, systems maintenance, energy management, coordinating repairs and refurbishing, as well as short-to-medium-run planning of all cash flows relating to the property.Asset prices
Asset prices denote the prices of assets such as stocks, bonds and real estate.Captive insurance arrangements
Business-related insurance risks are covered by the Group itself up to a predefined maximum that depends on financial resources and risk philosophy. The most frequently encountered methods are to build in a substantial deductible (per claim or per year, for example) before an insurance policy provides coverage or to have Group-owned (re)insurance companies, known as captives.Claims and variation orders
A variation order in the context of a construction contract is a set of instructions from the client-a change in specifications, for example-modifying the scope of work to be performed under contract. A variation order can result in an increase or a reduction of the contractor's proceeds from the contract. A claim is a monetary amount billed by the contractor to the client or another party in compensation for incurred costs that are not included in the contract price. The kinds of circumstances that can give rise to a claim include delays caused by the client and erroneous information provided by the client regarding site geology.Cluster risk
This arises due to the clustering of similar business interests, assets or other exposures whose cumulative total exceeds reasonable bounds, thus going against the principle of spreading risk.Consolidation
If one company directly or indirectly holds the majority of voting rights or has the majority of commercial opportunities and risks in a second company, the second company is a subsidiary of the first. Consolidated financial statements are prepared applying uniform accounting principles to the entire group comprising the parent and its subsidiaries. The consolidated financial statements show all assets, liabilities, income and expenses of the parent and its subsidiaries, except that transactions between companies in the group are eliminated. If a group includes subsidiaries which are not wholly owned, separate disclosure must be made of the proportion of shareholders' equity and group profit after taxes attributable to minority interestConstruction management at fee
An approach to project management where the construction manager advises the client and, during the design and build phases, provides services for a fee such as administration, construction planning and progress monitoring. The construction manager has little or no financial involvement in the project.Deferred taxes
These are not a specific type of tax, but amounts reported in the published earnings statement and balance sheet to account for temporary measurement and recognition differences between accounting items calculated in accordance with national or international accounting rules (such as Germany's Commercial Code or International Financial Reporting Standards) and the same items calculated in accordance with the rules applied by the revenue authorities when assessing taxable profits.EMAS certification
The voluntary Eco-Management Audit System (EMAS) developed by the European Communities in 1993 is a community system for environmental management and environmental audits of business enterprises in Europe. Participating businesses and organizations each set up their own program with voluntary environmental targets whose attainment is subject to regular monitoring by stringent independent expert audits.Euroconstruct area
The Euroconstruct area comprises a total of 19 countries- 15 in Western Europe and 4 in Eastern Europe. Regular surveys of regional construction market trends are performed for the countries concerned. The Euroconstruct area comprises Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.Further definitions are provided in our comprehensive online glossary at www.hochtief.com/investor-relations.
Anual Report 2006 english (3,60 MByte)
