Stages in Creditanstalt's "privatization"

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Stages in Creditanstalt's "privatization"

Death of a bank

The 17-point agreement of January 12


1956 Finance minister empowered to reduce the state's stake in Creditanstalt (CA) to 60%

1957 Sale of 10% of the capital in common shares and 30% in preference shares

1985 State pours Sch7 billion into CA's industrial holdings

1987 Finance minister empowered to reduce the state's share in CA to 51%. Abolition of the Ausländerklausel forbidding the sale of shares to foreigners

1988 Reduction of government's stake from 60% to 51%. Mitsubishi Trust buys 3% and Sumitomo Life 4%. EA-Generali increases its 1.5% of the voting shares of CA to 4.9%

1991 April 5 ­ Law passed empowering finance minister Lacina to sell the state's shareholding in CA and Österreichische Länderbank (OLB)

CA proposes secondary offering. Turned down by Lacina. CA attempts to attract minor shareholdings by foreign institutions.

Z-Bank and OLB merge as Bank Austria (BA)

1992 November ­ GECC meets CA board which is hostile, believing GECC is only interested in consumer finance

1993 Bayerische Vereinsbank shows interest

April ­ RZB makes an offer, basically a reverse takeover, to ministry of finance

May 5 ­ CA board opposes RZB proposal because of diminution of capital

May 6 ­ Finance minister Lacina rejects the RZB proposal because RZB won't reveal its mystery foreign partner

CA sells Bayerische Vereinsbank its 50% stake in Bank von Ernst (Switzerland) and AE Capital Corp (New York)

December ­ CA and Goldman again propose a share offering.


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