RombInvest AG (Do NOT post)

[Romberg]

This is a neat way for me to categorise all my state-owned storefronts

[Romberg]

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Since the independence of Romberg in the late 1920s, there has been an interest in the government operating in certain sectors of the economy. For some like electricity and heating gas, it was a way for the government to maintain a natural monopoly in these strategic resources. For others like mining, it was a way for the government to gain additional wealth. In any case, state-owned enterprise has been instrumental to the rise of the Rombergian nation, while the wealth it brought to the Rombergian government has been a source for continued prosperity as well as the bedrock for the maintenance of a strong welfare state.

Yet with state owned enterprise came corruption and structural inefficiencies. Thus, following the reunification of the nation after a devastating civil war, it was determined that a gradual liberalisation of the economy was required, including the privatisation and deregulation of many industries. By the late 1990s, most of Romberg's railways were franchised to private operators for example. Coupled with this was the reduction of government power over the firms it controlled, with independent boards of directors being appointed to run the operations of these companies, and government financial support for the firms gradually reduced to none. This liberalisation process was complete by the year 2005, with all government owned firms no longer directly run by the government. It was thus decided that all remaining government-owned corporations were to be converted to private joint-stock companies with the government as the sole shareholder. From then on, each government owned company would operate its own portfolio and conduct business with the market freely, while all dividends would be taken up by the government as a source of funding.

In late 2010, to further distance the government from the companies owned by it, it was decided that a holding company would be created as the official channel through which government ownership of these companies would be expressed. This is RombInvest AG.

Today, under the leadership of CEO Roman Freiherr und Edler von Schwartzenatter, RombInvest AG is still a major player in the Rombergian economy and beyond, although its size have been greatly reduced by privatisations and acquisitions by other companies over the years. Nonetheless, the firms under the ownership of RombInvest AG are still world renowned for their high quality goods and services produced. As a side effect of the establishment of RombInvest AG, it also meant that the government could participate in the Rombergian economy as an equal partner through RombInvest AG and its subsidiaries, but not be an overly domineering force nor using the law to its advantage, as RombInvest AC is bound by Rombergian law as well.

[Romberg]

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