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For the SPÖ, the appointment of two new directors for Österreichische Beteiligungs AG (ÖBAG), which manages large holdings in the republic, is a “starting point” for a possible replacement of the sole director of ÖBAG, Thomas Schmid. With the appointment of two new empowered directors to represent the company, “Schmid is superfluous,” SPÖ finance spokesman Jan Krainer said in a broadcast today.
Schmid had already done so much damage to ÖBAG’s reputation in his short tenure in office that his departure was “overdue,” Krainer said. The government must reveal how high the salaries of the two new directors are.
It also requires disclosure of whether there were previously consulting mandates from the ÖBAG and / or the state CoV funding agency COFAG to the consulting firm PwC and, if so, how much money was invested. Because ÖBAG board member Schmid has appointed the former head of PwC Austria, Christine Catasta, as director of investment management. Digitization expert Maximilian Schnödl will lead the strategy area.
Raidl sees “political party attacks”
Claus Raidl, who was once a board member of the former state holding company ÖIAG, a forerunner of ÖBAG and, more recently, the chairman of OeNB, does not want to understand the criticism and asks that he resign from the Schmid leadership. “These are attacks by political parties that are primarily aimed at hitting (ÖVP head) Sebastian Kurz,” Raidl is quoted in the “Presse” (Saturday edition).
Raidl, himself a critic of the state holding company for years, is full of praise: “With his personnel policy, like Catasta’s commitment, Schmid has reestablished and consolidated the state holding as an institution.” And Catasta himself said of the newspaper: “I hope that the political disputes now cease. It has to be about creating added value.”
“Press”: Interview with Catasta 2017 as Minister of Finance
According to “Presse” at the end of 2017, shortly before the inauguration of the ÖVP-FPÖ government, Kurz asked the auditor Catasta if she would like to become finance minister. Casino director Bettina Glatz-Kremsner had just canceled. Catasta: “I had a day to think about it.”
According to the press, he decided not to do so in view of his imminent career leap at PwC, and Hartwig Löger took over the office. And what is known: at the end of 2018 / beginning of 2019 she was in conversation for a time as a possible chair of the supervisory board of ÖBAG; Catasta canceled after PwC saw incompatibilities because the consultant deals with several large corporations, including ÖBAG. In place of Catasta, Helmut Kern became president of ÖBAG-AR.
