Austria Picks Hospital Boss Kern to Heal State Holding Company

(Bloomberg) -- Austria tapped a hospital manager to fix the holding company for the government’s stakes in some of the nation’s biggest companies.

Finance Minister Hartwig Loeger chose Helmut Kern, the general manager of Vienna’s Hospital of St. John of God, operated by the order since the 17th century, as chairman of the supervisory board of Oesterreichische Beteiligungs AG, the ministry said in a statement. Kern is due to be elected in the board’s first meeting Friday and among his first tasks will be to pick a chief executive officer, the ministry said.

Loeger and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz have remodeled the holding company to take greater control of the government’s stakes in companies including Telekom Austria AG, OMV AG, Oesterreichische Post AG and Verbund AG, positioning it to potentially increase existing stakes or buy new ones.

Loeger “is stressing once more the goal that the state is returning to a more active role in the management of its holdings,” the ministry said in the statement. “This is not about ‘more state control’ but about taking on the responsibility of Austria as the owner.”

Part of the old guard of chairmen at OeBAG’s companies has resigned more or less publicly in opposition to the move. OMV Chairman Peter Loescher, a former Siemens AG CEO, last year announced his resignation, saying Kurz’s government put the balance between government ownership and independent board members at risk. Verbund Chairman Gerhard Roiss followed this week, without giving reasons. Both had been appointed by previous Austrian governments.

Kurz’s move is an about-face for the conservatives leading the government coalition with the nationalist Freedom Party. Austria’s last conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel had heralded the sale of assets in the early 2000s under the slogan “more private, less state.” OeBAG has no mandate to sell.

It has yet to become clear what the new strategy means in practice for the companies. Loeger has declined to say which companies he’s looking at for possible purchases.

Austria owns 28 percent of Telekom Austria after allowing Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil SAB to take a majority stake. Its holding in OMV is 31.5 percent, and it has a shareholder pact with Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co, which owns 24.9 percent. In closely held Casinos Austria, the government holds 33 percent, and in Austrian Post it has 53 percent. It fully owns property company BIG. The 51 percent stake in utility Verbund will remain directly owned by the ministry but also managed by OeBAG.

Kern, 53, worked at consultancies Deloitte and PwC before heading the management of the hospital. He’s currently also the deputy president of Vienna University’s board. Kern was a supervisory board member at gambling company Bwin Party Digital Entertainment Plc before it was sold to GVC Holdings Plc in 2016.

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