Austrian subprime woes turn into political hot potato
The Austrian government debt agency’s two-year old foray into subprime investments has turned into a political hot potato and sparked an increasingly heated debate between the Social Democrats and conservatives, caught in an uneasy but coalition government without viable alternative.
Austria’s audit court last week revealed that the agency, which in its staid day job issues government bonds and makes sure state coffers are full when they need to be, started to moonlight on money markets in 2002 to earn a little extra money on the side.
Its cash position ballooned from an average 4.5 billion euros in 2002 to a peak of 26.8 billion euros in October 2007. This level “was not only determined by economic necessities, but was also meant to generate additional revenues,” the audit court said in its report.
Sure enough, as much as 10.8 billion euros went into asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP), a class of structured investments that became disreputable when the subprime crisis broke out in 2007. Luckily, the debt agency got away only slightly bruised, with up to 380 million euros in possible losses from those investments.
Even though the loss looks manageable (it equals 0.13 percent of Austria’s GDP), and no rules seem to have broken, two former and the current finance minister – all conservatives – as well as the agency itself find itself at the centre of a debate seeking someone to blame.
The conservatives were caught slightly wrong-footed. Still basking in election successes based on voters’ perception that they, rather than the Social Democrats, were the safe pair of hands to steer the country through the economic crisis, they suddenly faced charges of gambling away taxpayers’ money.
Karl-Heinz Grasser, under whose reign as finance minister the agency’s side business started, and whose life after politics mainly consisted of modelling and launching an ill-fated joint venture with coffee-roasting heir and banker Julius Meinl, said the losses didn’t happen under him – dodging the question why the side business was started in the first place.
What next for OMV, and for MOL?
Following an acrimonious and drawn-out takeover battle for Hungary’s MOL, Austrian oil and gas group OMV finally did as expected: it threw in the towel.
Yet according to OMV Chief Executive Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, the consolidation pressures in central Europe — the strategic rationale which prompted him to launch the unsolicited offer in the first place — remain in place.
Analysts and investors have often pointed out that OMV could do better with the cash then parking it in a MOL stake. And while OMV sat tight and awaited the outcome of its unwanted approach, MOL busied itself stringing together a network of strategic allies, entering into ventures with Cez from the Czech Republic and Oman’s OOC.
Meanwhile, Ruttenstorfer says he is determined to keep his 20.2 percent stake in MOL, at least for the time being — but he did not rule out a sale in the mid or long-term.
With precious few takeover targets in the region in view, there is not much else Ruttenstorfer can do for now.
For OMV, its MOL stake could be a lever to get, for example, a share in MOL’s refining business.
Ruttenstorfer cited Lukoil’s and Gazpromneft’s interest in the region as one example for increasing consolidation pressures. Though any big investor would likely await the outcome of the European Union ruling on MOL’s 10-percent voting cap, which poses a major obstacle to whoever would set their eyes on a takeover of the Hungarian group.
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