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 Waltzing onAustria’s banking system was rocked by the near-collapse of Hypo Group Alpe Adria and its resulting nationalisation. Legal Business looks at the law firms called in to save the country’s sixth-largest lender, and the lucrative mandates picked up by Austria’s top legal advisers in response to recent events.By Julian Matteucci For Austria’s law firms, it looked like party time when BayernLB acquired Hypo Group Alpe Adria (HGAA) back in 2007. HGAA was a top player in Balkan markets such as Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. BayernLB expected the profits to roll in and HGAA’s IPO was eagerly anticipated. By the following year, €1.7bn-worth of write-downs and loan losses had been generated, and HGAA found itself being propped up by the Austrian state. Cut to the end of 2009 when the government took over HGAA completely. The Austrian state and HGAA’s former owners agreed to provide €1.5bn of capital, an agreement based on a proposal put forth by the various legal and financial advisers caught up in the deal. The purchase price was a mere €1, and necessitated writing off BayernLB’s €3.7bn investment. The political backlash in Austria was fierce. HGAA was previously majority-owned by the Austrian state of Carinthia, and its controversial, now-deceased, far-right governor Jörg Haider had been boasting about Carinthia’s fortunes after the bank’s disposition. The nationalisation deal was brokered in an atmosphere of emergency and executed in swift fashion. Acting for the state of Austria were its lawyers Finanzprokuratur, while leading CEE law firm Wolf Theiss, together with Viennese-based legal practice Kosch & Partner and KPMG International, acted as advisers to HGAA in its negotiations with the government and the bank’s shareholders. Kosch & Partner and KPMG assisted with the preparation of various recapitalisation scenarios, but it was Wolf Theiss, through lead partner Markus Heidinger, that provided the bulk of the advice to HGAA. To read the rest of this article subscribe to Legal Business. 
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