After the merger, which was a fairly complementary one with relatively few overlaps except for the central functions, the bank went public. It was the largest IPO in Austria. The bank has now a full private shareholder basis; there is no public share holding or guarantee. It is listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange and has a relative weight in the Austrian trading index of some 20%.
TWST: Can you comment on your geographic coverage, what are the underlying economics and what has motivated the expansion?
If you look at the preliminary figures of GDP growth for the year 2001, you will see that countries like the Czech Republic or Slovakia and Hungary have expected real GDP growth rates of 200 to 250 basis points above the European average. Of course, a customer somewhere in Eastern Slovakia will not be able to save as much now as the average Austrian customer, but the growth expectation of his demand for financial services are definitely there, and elasticity of demand for those services is very positive and is rising faster than GDP growth.
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