The sale was approved, the purchase price was parked in a trust account: the investment company Sova Capital, which belongs to the Russian oligarch Roman Avdeev, paid 50 million euros for the takeover of the Posojilnica Bank, and they wanted to bring in 20 million euros as equity. But the ruble did not roll: The investment control department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs approved the sale subject to conditions, but the financial market supervisory authority and the European Central Bank pulled the ripcord due to the risk of money laundering – the deal fell through shortly before Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Dramatic turning point in the eventful history of the 151-year-old cooperative. After turbulence in 2015, Posojilnica had to be absorbed by the Raiffeisen Banking Group, which has held 95 percent of the capital and voting rights since then. The liberal granting of loans in Slovenia and Croatia by former managers turned into a fiasco. The rescue of the two institutes Zveza and Posojilnica cost 73 million euros. Money that the owners, led by RBI and head of the supervisory board Gebhard Kawalirek, wanted to get back in part with the sale.
“No plans to sell bank”
A sale seems off the table today. “There are no plans or resolutions to sell the bank,” Kawalirek said succinctly and unequivocally. This could be due to the fact that there are no potential buyers, or because the bank has returned to profitability after years of heavy losses and a return flow of the money is possible, albeit in decades.
A savings program and the utilization of non-performing loans turned the operating result under the directors Martin Ressmann and Michael Sova (coincidentally the same name as Sova Capital) into the profit zone: from minus 2.3 million euros to 80,000 euros in 2022. The annual surplus was almost 2.1 million Euro doubled, non-performing loans massively reduced, from 150 million euros to 24 million, twelve of them in Slovenia, seven in Croatia and five in Austria. The sale of the property was “very successful,” says Sova. “Now the remediation is in a final phase, by the end of 2024 all contaminated sites should be history.”
Not maintained, but reduced costs
The failed sale had no impact on the business: “We didn’t wait for what would happen, but reduced costs.” Cost issues are crucial for the small bank – the balance sheet total shrunk from 415.6 to 400 million euros in 2022. Because in the gable cross universe, Poso was considered the “tenth state bank” that went its own way in terms of auditing, IT and other things – which caused additional costs of two million euros. But now they want to be under the umbrella of the Carinthian RLB: “We are looking for technical support from the RLB,” explains Sova. “The revision could be done together. The technical connection would be our goal.”
Address more German-speaking customers
Poso looks after 23,000 customers with its 65 employees (full-time basis) in seven bank branches. Three are to be sold: Bleiburg/Pliberk, Eisenkappel/(Z)elezna Kapla and Klagenfurt. “The buildings are being sold and we are renting them,” says Sova. “The locations will be retained with reduced costs.” Two thirds of the headquarters in Klagenfurt’s Paulitschgasse have been cleared, and some of the jobs have been moved to Ferlach. “We concentrate fully on Carinthia, the most loyal customers are from the ethnic group,” says the Viennese, who moved to Carinthia for work. They also want to appeal more to German-speaking customers.
