Hampel leaves Bank Austria after a quarrel over B & C Privatstiftung «DiePresse.com

The Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Erich Hampel (67), resigns from Bank Austria. Trigger was the attempt of investor Michael Tojner to take over the private foundation B & C. Because Hampel also heads the board of directors of B & C Private Foundation and so it was in the impending litigation of both sides.

Tojner wants to take over the B & C with a group of investors. The foundation holds interests in the industrial companies Lenzing, AMAG and Semperit. According to unconfirmed media reports, Tojner is providing EUR 100 million to UniCredit for the transfer of its rights as beneficiary and ultimate beneficiary to the Foundation. In addition, EUR 150 million should be allocated to the reshuffle of the board of trustees to Tojner or to persons appointed by him.

From the point of view of the B & C Foundation, which qualifies the offer of hostile, UniCredit no longer has these rights, since these had already been paid in 2008.

In a letter to the CEO of UniCredit, Jean-Piere Mustier, whose Managing Director, Gianni Franco Papa, and the Director of Operations, Ranieri de Marchis, Hampel are now reporting to the Board of Directors of Bank Austria, led by Robert Zadrazil, of the Autorité des marchés financiers and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank Retirement with immediate effect communicated all the functions, writes the "standard" without specifying the sources.

The "Standard" writes, also without indicating any source, that Hampel, "in his capacity as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bank Austria, has not learned anything formally about the decisions of the Executive Committee charged with the question of Tojner in Milan and the UniCredit board of directors, although in his eyes his own controlled Austrian banks are of immediate importance ". And further: "According to information, Hampel speaks of illegal behavior of Italians about the B & C affair".

Hampel has resigned from eight supervisory board mandates, in addition to the presidency of the BA Supervisory Board regarding his tenure in the respective UniCredit subsidiaries in Serbia, Hungary and Croatia, but also at Bausparkbade Wüstenrot and Oesterreichischer Kontrollbank. With this step, he wanted to eliminate possible conflicts of interest of the world.

(APA)