GlOBAl_COMPETITIVENESS_REPORT – The World Economic Forum calculated competitiveness of 133 countries for 2009-2010.The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by attracting attention to regional agendas.
Switzerland is at the top of overall ranking. The United States falls one place to second position. Singapore, Sweden and Denmark round out the top five. European economies continue to prevail in the top 10 with Finland, Germany and the Netherlands following suit. (more…)

AUSTRIAN FAR-RIGHTS. The Austrian Parliament Tuesday made it easier to prosecute foreign tax evaders, by passing a law intended to get the country in line with international banking transparency standards. With this law, Austria took a first step to be removed from so-called grey list of tax havens drawn up by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. While Austria is not as important a banking centre as neighbouring Liechtenstein and Switzerland, it is the only European Union member on the OECD banking “grey list”. Besides Austria, the list contains non-EU countries that have not yet implemented these standards.
To be promoted to a financial “white list”, countries must sign at least 12 new bilateral fiscal treaties in which they agree to cooperate on tax evasion issues. Failure to quickly sign new tax deals may result in sanctions. The European Investment Bank has said it will cut off funding to Austrian banks’ projects abroad if it does not make the necessary changes by the March 2010 deadline. (more…)

Werner Braun für Die Wiener Nachrichten

Nun ist der Deal perfekt! Opel hat sich von seiner Muttergesellschaft GM gelöst und ist in Deutschland sozusagen auf den Markt geworfen worden. Es hat lange und zähe Verhandlungen gegeben, in welchen sich schließlich Frank Stronachs Unternehmen Magna durchgesetzt hat.

Der Verkauf eines derartigen Unternehmens ist aber keineswegs eine einfache Sache. Auf der Verkäuferseite gilt es, die – durchaus unterschiedlichen – Interessen mehrerer Gruppen zu wahren, und auch der Käufer muss mehrere Geldgeber unter einen Hut bringen, dabei die Interessen der Verkäufer wahren und zudem noch seinen Mit-Financiers klare Vorteile aus dem Kauf bieten.
Magna ist kein kleines Unternehmen – immerhin der weltweit drittgrößte Zulieferer der Autoindustrie. Aber dieser Deal brachte auch Frank Stronachs Unternehmen an die Grenze seiner Möglichkeiten. Und es ist noch keineswegs ausgestanden, denn auch Magna wurde – verständlicherweise – von seinen Kunden tief in die Krise mit hineingezogen. (more…)

Famous Austrians

Frank  Stronach is an Austrian-Canadian businessman. He is the founder of Magna International, an automotive parts company based in Canada, and Magna Entertainment Corp., which specializes in horse-racing entertainment.
Born in the small town in Styria, Austria to a working-class couple, he left school to apprentice as a tool maker.
In 1954, he immigrated to Canada and started his first business there. In 1986, Stronach founded Magna Europa, with headquarters in Lower Austria, which later became Magna Steyr

Stronach, Sberbank and Opel

TORONTO (Reuters) – Magna International chairman Frank Stronach, who left Europe a virtually penniless toolmaker over 50 years ago, made a deal for Germany’s Opel, which will impact all world automobile industry.

The 76-year-old Magna founder -a rags-to-riches tycoon – emigrated to Canada aged 21. Now his auto parts firm has clinched a deal to take an Opel stake, after a week of negotiations. The son of a labour rights activist father and a factory worker mother, Stronach left school aged 14 to become a tool and die apprentice at a factory in Weiz, Styria. (more…)

Magna-Mitarbeiter müssen Gürtel enger schnallen

Wien, 05. Mai (Reuters) – Die österreichischen Mitarbeiter des an Opel interessierten Autozulieferers Magna müssen künftig den Gürtel enger schnallen. Etwa ein Drittel der Belegschaft wird ein Jahr lang bis zu 20 Prozent weniger Gehalt bekommen. Diesem Schritt habe die Mehrheit der Belegschaft zugestimmt, teilte das Unternehmen am Montag mit.
Magna hat bereits 5000 der 11.000 österreichischen Mitarbeiter in Kurzarbeit geschickt, weil die Nachfrage von Seiten der Automobilkonzerne deutlich zurückgegangen ist.
Der österreichisch-kanadische Konzern hat – neben anderen Unternehmen – Interesse am angeschlagenen Autobauer Opel. Magna-Chef Frank Stronach hatte dies kürzlich bekräftigt, die Art eines Engagements aber offengelassen. (more…)

Lost your job? Struggling with the bills? Think about Oleg Deripaska, whose wealth is estimated to have fallen by $25.1 billion in the past year.

He now has of only about $3.5 billion and the Russian edition of Forbes magazine put the oligarch from first to tenth place in a list of the country’s richest people. Forbes said that the net of Russia’s richest had fallen by 70 per cent over the year and the number of billionaires had fallen from 110 to 32.

VIENNA, April 27 (Reuters) – Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska is set to hand back a 25 percent stake in Austrian builder Strabag to Strabag’s other key shareholders, Austrian bank Raiffeisen Holding NOe-Wien said on Monday. Under a deal due to be signed this week the family of Strabag’s chief executive, Hans Peter Haselsteiner, Raiffeisen and insurer Uniqa will take back all of Deripaska’s stake but for one share, a spokeswoman for Raiffeisen said.
Along with the single share Deripaska will get an option until the end of the year to buy back his stake, she said. Until then, he will stay in the syndicate with Haselsteiner, Raiffeisen and Uniqa that jointly controls Strabag.The other shareholders last year took over a loan Deripaska had taken from Deutsche Bank to help purchase the stake for around 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in 2007. The loan was guaranteed by his Strabag stake. Deripaska, who flourished as a commodity trader in the chaos that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, rose to be ranked as Russia’s richest man last year with an empire stretching from airports to cement production.
But he has since sold stakes in Canadian car parts maker Magna International and German builder Hochtief and Russia’s Finans magazine said in February his worth had dropped to $4.9 billion from $40 billion.

AFP-German airline Lufthansa is the only contender to have launched a takeover bid for ailing flag-carrier Austrian Airlines, a source close to the matter told AFP on Tuesday after a bidding deadline passed.
Lufthansa was the only one of the three interested companies to have lodged a firm bid for the airline (AUA), the source said, contradicting an earlier media report.
Air France-KLM and S7 of Russia had also expressed interest but did not present a formal offer, the source said. The deadline for firm offers passed at 1000 GMT on Tuesday after months of media speculation about which airlines might step in to help take over AUA during difficult times for the airline sector.
The state-owned holding company OeIAG is looking for a buyer for its 42-percent stake in AUA, after the Austrian government gave it until the end of the year to find a partner.
A further deadline stands for bidders to present details of their takeover proposals by Friday and the final announcement on which company will take the stake is to be announced on October 27.
Austrian Airlines has nearly 900 million euros (1.3 billion dollars) of debt and has estimated losses this year in the tens of millions of euros.
According to terms of the sale, 25 percent of AUA’s capital must remain in Austrian hands so as to safeguard jobs and maintain Vienna as the airline’s main hub.

Rudolf Hundstorfer, President of Austrian Federation of Trade Unions (OeGB)

In October 2003 Rudolf Hundstorfer became vice president of the OeGB (Austrian Federation of Trade Unions). After resignation of Fritz Verzetnisch as president of this organization in March 2006 because of the BAWAG scandal, Hundstorfer took the presidency provisionally. On September, 8th 2005 as a representative of all BAWAG stockholders he signed an agreement, that the OeGB will adopt the BAWAGs debts of 1.53 billion Euros. Hundstorfer kept this fact in secret until June 2006. When he was asked by journalists for reason doing so, he told he did not know, what he had signed. Translated by G.T

Managers found guilty in Austrian BAWAG trial (Vienna) All nine defendants in the BAWAG bank were found guilty on Friday in the trial on Austria’s biggest banking scandal on Friday, as the bank managers were held responsible for high losses arising from speculative investments. Former BAWAG CEO Helmut Elsner, 73, and other bank managers were deemed guilty of having hidden losses around 1.7 billion euros (2.7 billion dollars) from off-shore investments between 1995 and 2000. US-based investor Wolfgang Floettl, 52, had carried out the unsuccessful financial deals in the Caribbean on behalf of Austria’s fourth largest bank. The scandal reverberated beyond the financial sector as the losses of Austria’s fourth-biggest bank severely weakened one of its former owners, the Austrian Trade Union Federation.

In December 2006 the ailing BAWAG was sold off to the US-based hedge fund Cerberus. All nine defendants face prison sentences of up to 10 years, as most of them were accused of breach of confidence and balance sheet fraud. DPA