Kaszinók, részvénytársaságok és hitelek
Casinos, Joint-Stock Companies and Credits

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the investment strategies of casinos through presenting examples of corporate headquarters construction projects. It describes four cases in which the casinos founded a separate joint-stock company (abbreviated in Hungarian by the letters Rt.) to manage and complete the task. The Fővárosi Casino Épület Rt. [Capital City Casino Building Corp.] was founded on 22 April, 1884 in order to provide premises to the society then referred to as the VI-VII. Kerületi Kör [District VI-VII Circle] and later called Terézvárosi Casino. Completed in the fall of 1885, the building was designed by Gusztáv Petshacher. Despite personal ties with the Hungarian National Central Savings Bank, the 90,000 forint credit required to cover the costs of the construction was provided by the Budapest Capital City Guardian Bank. Budapest-Krisztinavárosi Casino-épület Rt. [Budapest-Krisztinaváros Casino Building Corp.] was founded in 1892 by members of the Budai Polgári Casino [Buda Civil Casino]. They obtained a credit of 50,000 forints from Unified Budapest-Capital Savings Bank, which was a large shareholder in the company and had been handling its equity capital as well. The building designed by Imre Francsek was completed in 1893. Lipótvárosi Casino-épület Rt. [Lipótváros Casino Building Corp.] was founded in 1893 also as a casino initiative. There were both personal and institutional ties between the joint-stock company and the Lipótvárosi Casino. In this case they needed to obtain credit even for purchasing the land. This was the largest of the four constructions, and required three more lines of credit. Two of these were provided by the Pest First National Savings Bank, while one by the members themselves in the form of bonds. The building designed by Vilmos Freund was opened in 1896. Budapest-Kőbányai Casino-Épület Rt. [Budapest-Kőbánya Casino Building Corp.] was founded on May 11, 1899 with the aim of constructing an appropriate main office building for the X. kerületi Kőbányai Kör [Tenth District Kőbánya Circle], later renamed Budapest-Kőbányai Casino. The building designed by Antal Steinhardt was completed in 1901. Credit was applied for three times. The largest sum was provided by Capital City Guardian Bank, and then they obtained further credits from the Pest Hungarian Commercial Bank and Kőbánya Savings Bank.

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