Gerhard Randa

Gerhard Randa    ( banker)
Born	13 September 1944  Vienna,  Austria
Nationality	Austrian
Alma mater	World Trade University
Austrian Bilderberg banker

Gerhard Randa is an Austrian banker who attended three Bilderberg meetings at a time when his bank was being merged because of losses incurred in Eastern Europe under his leadership. Randa was investigated in connection with the 2008 Madoff affair

Background

Randa graduated from the World Trade University in Vienna.

Career

He has been working in the banking sector since 1967. At first he was General Director of the Österreichische Länderbank, after its merger with the Zentralsparkasse and Kommerzialbank to form Bank Austria, he was Deputy General Director there, and from 1995 General Director of Bank Austria.

Randa's biggest surprise success came in 1997 with the takeover of the state shares of Creditanstalt by Bank Austria. Since Bank Austria was still a municipal savings bank at that time, with the City of Vienna as the owner of the share management savings Bank, the largest shareholder of the institute, this takeover was criticized by the national and international banking scene as a sham privatization, also in connection with the liability of the City of Vienna for the institute.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, there has been competition among Austrian banks for expansion into Eastern Europe. The risk that Randa and Bank-Austria took on with regard to Eastern European business was led to billions in losses from 1998 onwards. The raising of funds on the capital market in connection with the expansion of activities in the Eastern Europe business had already led to a share structure that made a hostile takeover possible. Due to this and the now weakened profitability of Austria's largest banking institution, Randa began negotiations with HypoVereinsbank and other possible partners as early as 1999.

After the merger of Bank Austria with HypoVereinsbank in 2000, he held a management board position at HVB. As a result, Bank Austria became the cash cow of HypoVereinsbank, which was otherwise underperforming due to legacy issues.

Randa once responded to the accusations of having permanently ruined the banking landscape in Austria with the remark that he had always acted only as the executor of the shareholders. By this he meant the "share management Zentralsparkasse", which was owned by the SPÖ-dominated city of Vienna.

After the takeover of HVB by Unicredit, Randa joined the board of the Magna Group from Frank Stronach in Toronto.

In April 2012, Volksbank International AG (VBI) announced that Gerhard Randa would become a member of the Supervisory Board of VBI.The name Volksbank International AG was later changed to Sberbank Europe AG. In 2016, he joined the Executive Board and became its chairman.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1998	14 May 1998	17 May 1998	Scotland Turnberry	The 46th Bilderberg meeting, held in Scotland, chaired by Peter Carrington
Bilderberg/1999	3 June 1999	6 June 1999	Portugal Sintra	The 47th Bilderberg, 111 participants
Bilderberg/2002	30 May 2002	2 June 2002	US Virginia Chantilly Westfields Marriott	The 50th Bilderberg, held at Chantilly, Virginia.

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