FMA board member Helmut Ettl denied on Tuesday that there was special treatment of René Benko’s bankrupt Signa company by the supervisory authority. “We treat all requests equally,” he said on the sidelines of a press conference on Tuesday. The background is a recently revealed attempted intervention by the former head of the bankrupt real estate conglomerate’s supervisory board, Alfred Gusenbauer.
Former SPÖ Chancellor Gusenbauer wrote a letter to Ettl in September 2023 describing the ECB’s actions as “inexplicable” – we reported. On behalf of Signa, he wrote: “We ask for your support in clarifying the situation and are available for discussions at any time – including with ECB representatives.”
Ettl: “Procedure not unusual”
The FMA confirmed receipt of the letter. According to the Austrian Supervisory Authority, the request was forwarded to the responsible banking supervisor at the central bank at the time.
When asked about it on Tuesday, Ettl noted that such an approach is not unusual: Every year the authority receives about 2,000 letters from a wide variety of people and organizations – “from prominent and less prominent” positions. The various concerns and complaints are always handled in the same way, Ettl assures.
Signa bankruptcy ‘can be tolerated by banks’
However, the FMA leadership does not see any danger to the Austrian banking sector from the wave of Signa bankruptcies and the exposure of financial institutions. “The size is bearable for the local banks,” says FMA board member Eduard Müller with conviction. It is not known exactly how high the volume of outstanding Signa loans is in the domestic banking sector. An amount of approximately 2.2 billion euros was recently reported.
Speaking of banks, Ettl also spoke at the press conference about Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), which recently abandoned its plan to use a complex transaction to get frozen funds out of Russia. In any case, the financial institution is well positioned even if the RBI has to completely write off its Russian subsidiary in the medium term, the FMA board said.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
