The Lower Austrian Raiffeisen Holding, the largest private equity holding and a conglomerate with numerous corporate investments, is to be strategically realigned.
“We want to give the Raiffeisen Holding a new profile and go into new business areas,” announced Holding CEO Michael Höllerer on Tuesday in the business journalists’ club.
The holding company is invested in the food and beverage sector with Agrana, the NÖM dairy and the Leipnik Lundenburger mill group, as well as in the Raiffeisen Landesbank Niederösterreich-Wien and Strabag, Europe’s largest construction group.
Höllerer defines the health and care sector as well as energy as new business areas. Raiffeisen sees itself as a sustainable investor who supports customers in the energy transition. The green electricity tariff “Auri One”, which has been offered to end customers since last year, is very popular.
Signa media participation
Raiffeisen Niederösterreich is also the majority owner of KURIER through Medicur Holding. Since the Signa Group’s bankruptcy, its media holdings have also been for sale. René Benko bought indirectly from Krone and KURIER in 2018. Signa Holding acquired 49 percent of the WAZ foreign holding from the German Funke Group. This in turn is at 50 percent Krone involved and holds just under 50 percent of the KURIER. There are mutual access rights.
If something happens to an owner, “we are fundamentally interested,” says Höllerer and confirmed on Tuesday that he was specifically interested in the Signa media package. Höllerer left it open whether this interest only focused on the KURIER stake or also on the Krone shares.
Signa was said to have spent around 80 million euros on the WAZ shares when it got involved. Given the tense situation in the domestic media industry, it cannot be assumed that the value of these shares has increased in the meantime.
Höllerer did not want to comment on the Signa loans from RLB NÖ-Wien, citing banking secrecy.
“Steeplechase”
Höllerer, who as head of RLB NÖ-Wien is also on the Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) supervisory board, was convinced that the Strabag-Russia deal was in compliance with sanctions. The sanctioning environment was checked “more than cleanly”. He understands the strict approach taken by the authorities; a deal like this cannot simply be waved through.
As reported, RBI, whose largest shareholder is RLB NÖ-Wien, wants to release frozen profits from its Russian subsidiary through a complex structure. Höllerer did not give a timetable for completion. Regarding criticism from the European Central Bank (ECB) that the withdrawal from Russia was happening too slowly, Höllerer said, “It’s an obstacle course and not a sprint.” The fact that the ECB is looking closely at the issue is “its right and its duty”.
Federal treasures
Höllerer is not bothered by the fact that the Republic is now paying interest on federal treasury notes. However, he thinks it is unfair that the Federal Financing Agency advertises “unlimited invitation security” to investors (this means the Republic of Austria).