The Strabag syndicate, which has existed since 2007, was broken up when Haselsteiner resigned. The contract between the three core shareholders provided for the nomination of supervisory board members and the coordination of voting results at the general meeting, according to group information today, Tuesday. There were close agreements within the syndicate and the principle of unanimity prevailed. Now each of the three major shareholders can act and make decisions independently – an organizational upheaval.
“Nothing has changed in the ownership structure,” emphasized group spokeswoman Marianne Jakl on Tuesday in an interview with APA. “As a company, we have no options to intervene in the shareholder structure,” she clarified. Deripaska is still the core shareholder via MKAO “Rasperia Trading Limited” and holds a 27.8 percent stake in Strabag. The private foundation of the Haselsteiner family owns 28.3 percent, the UNIQA insurance company holds 29.5 percent together with the Raiffeisen financial group. Only 14.4 percent are in free float. That could change in the future.
Haselsteiner himself did not want to comment further personally on his step out of the syndicate, which was announced today. “No further comment from my side – I am sorry,” he said when asked by APA.
The Russian oligarch Deripaska is not on the EU sanctions list for the time being. However, it is already being sanctioned by Great Britain and Canada – two markets in which Strabag is active and generates profits. Therefore, the management also has the legal authority to cancel the dividend for the oligarch. In the past few weeks, Haselsteiner had tried to buy Deripaska’s stake in Strabag, but in vain. That is why he now took the next step – the termination of the syndicate agreement, “after all efforts to acquire the Russian share failed,” as Strabag put it in its press release.
“The Management Board welcomes the step taken by our core shareholder, the Haselsteiner Familien-Privatstiftung, to create clear conditions by terminating the syndicate agreement. On the management side, we are ready to take all legally possible measures to avert damage to the company,” said Strabag boss Thomas Birtel in a corporate statement. This refers “in view of the sanctions currently imposed by Great Britain and Canada, in particular to the payment of dividends”.
“The board of directors has decided not to pay a dividend to Rasperia,” Jakl confirmed to APA. “We wanted to send a clear signal – just like Doctor Haselsteiner did with the termination of the syndicate.”
Strabag’s Russia business, which has already shrunk – it is now “of secondary importance” at 0.3 percent of group output – is being sold: the board of directors has “made the decision to wind down the activities”, i.e. to withdraw from the country, shared this Management on Tuesday further with.
“In view of the endless misery of the Ukrainian population affected by the war”, Strabag initiated and financed extensive aid measures, particularly in the group countries most affected, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Republic of Moldova. These initiatives will continue to be carried out with pride by shareholders, the Management Board and employees “in accordance with the Group’s code of values”.
From the point of view of investor protectors, Haselsteiner’s step is to be welcomed. “The syndicate contract is gone for now – an annoying chapter is now getting a new dynamic. Hopefully that’s positive for the company,” said the board of directors of the interest group for investors (IVA), Florian Beckermann, in a first reaction to the APA. “It was a blockage, now there is a strategic change,” said the IVA boss. “We hope for a larger free float.” In any case, investors’ hopes for an expansion of business in Russia have been diminishing for a long time. Now she should be finally buried.