How Voest lost billions of Schillings
The Austrians call it das neue Event, the sudden resignation of the
entire supervisory board of the country's largest industrial group,
state-run Voest Alpine, in the wake of losses amounting to nearly Asch6
billion ($339 million). The losses, though unexpected, are likely to be
covered, almost as a matter of routine, by disbursement from the federal
budget. What's new--and startling --is the tough approach being
adopted by the government to Austria's huge portfolio of
nationalized companies.
The abrupt departure of Voest Alpine's chief executive,
Heribert Apfalter, who was voted Austria's top executive in 1984,
and the entire supervisory board is novel in a country where cooperation
and consensus among unions, employers and the government has always
ensured a cosy accommodation of interests and ideology.
Finance minister Franz Vranitzky went on Austrian national radio in
late November to declare that nationalized companies should not...
