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At Lenzing AG they obviously want to draw a line under the Hygiene Austria venture. A certified public accountant is supposed to take over the management of the mask producer’s stock.
Not so the boss of Palmers, Tino Wieser (47). Yesterday he gave a series of interviews in which he rejected Lenzing’s accusations. Wieser also rejected allegations that Hygiene Austria had employed illegal workers. The temporary agency is solely responsible for the correct payment of temporary workers. There have been “regular and transparent contracts” with these companies, Wieser said.
With the acquisition of Palmers in the fall of 2015, Wieser became the center of media attention. Together with his brothers Marc (48) and Luca (37) and investor Matvei Hutman, whose family still owns 50 percent of Palmers shares, he took over Palmers AG, then somewhat battered, for around € 20 million. . Originally there was also the upper Austrian Gernot Friedhuber, son of photographer and mountaineer Sepp Friedhuber, who turned his back on Palmer within months.
OÖN in conversation about the FFP2 mask scandal
Third generation textiles
The grandparents of the Wieser brothers’ trio ran the famous Knilli fashion department store in Graz. The mother was also an entrepreneur and had a textile wholesaler and a fashion chain with 20 branches. While Tino and Marc continued the family tradition and were hired at the Italian fashion group Benetton, Luca went to Raiffeisen Investment, later Red Bull.
Marc Wieser resigned from the Palmers board in 2018. Since then, Tino and Luca Wieser, as well as Matvei Hutman, have run the business.
Palmers was no stranger to the Wiesers. When the company went up for sale in 2004 after disputes with the then board of directors and with the owners, the Wiesers tried to take over together with Benetton. The German investment fund Quadriga Capital was awarded the contract. However, this fund and the Palmers management team were out of luck. Therefore, 2015 offered the Wiesers and Hutman a second chance. The restructuring lasted until 2018. A year later, in the fall of 2019, Palmers reported earnings before taxes of more than € 3.6 million.
The Chinese mask issue took on a political dimension mainly because the wife of Palmers board member Luca Wieser, Lisa Maria, is the manager of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s office. Tino Wieser’s comment: “That did more harm than good.” (hn)
