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 be asked to maintain employment or factories for political or regional considerations. "Management has to be able to follow a policy that allows a company to follow a profitable path,' said Vranitzky.
Yet there are those who question the Austrian resolve to rebut the periodic cries for subsidies from the state-owned industrial sector.