User:Dainius36/Anglo-Austrian Bank

Headquarters of Anglobank in Vienna, around 1910

The Anglo-Österreichische Bank, Or Anglobank for short, was a credit institution founded in Vienna in 1863 with an extensive branch network in all crown lands and later states of Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Italy. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, in 1921/22 the company became the Anglo-Austrian Bank based in London and the Anglo-Czechoslovak Bank based in Prague.

In 1926, most of the shares in Austria, along with the Vienna branches, were sold to Creditanstalt and Anglo-Austrian Bank was converted into Anglo-International Bank. Anglo-International Bank remained active in business until 1951. The settlement took place until 1962. To protect trademark rights, a shell company has existed since 1963.

Anglo-Austrian Bank

Founded on 1 November 1863 in Vienna with British and Austrian capital, Anglo-Österreichische Bank, or Anglobank for short, was the first of the so-called Foreign Banks alongside the Ottoman Bank. The London bank Glyn, Mills, Leurie & Co. was significantly involved in the foundation. The Board of Directors, then called Generalrath, consisted of an Austrian committee with eight members and an English committee with also eight members. Until 1921, the headquarters were located in the Palais Montenuovo at Strauchgasse 1–3, opposite the Old Vienna Stock Exchange. In 1864, the Anglobank had initially rented parts of the palace, bought and rebuilt them completely in 1871, whereby the courtyard was covered with glass and from then on served as a cash room.

The starting capital was 20 million silver guilders in 100,000 shares. According to the Articles of Association, each board of directors had to personally deposit at least 100 shares and received a fixed remuneration of 3000 silver guilders per year. Within a short time, the Anglo-Österreichische Bank recorded enormous successes. From 1864 to the end of 1868, total assets rose by almost four times from 22.6 million silver guilders to the record level of 89.5 million silver guilders. The focus was on investments in the expansion of the railway network of the Habsburg Monarchy, the financing of companies, especially in mining, the iron and steel industry, and the establishment of new banks.

These included the Anglo-Ungarische Bank, founded in Pest in 1867 as a subsidiary, and five other banks established in the same year, one in Prague and four based in Vienna. Important subsidiaries in Vienna until the First World War were M. L. Biedermann & Co. Bank-Aktiengesellschaft, österreichische Kontrollbank für Industrie und Handel and Wiener Creditbank. Furthermore, in 1869, with the significant participation of Anglobank, the Allgemeine österreichische Baugesellschaft was founded, which dealt with the acquisition of large, centrally located property complexes as well as their development and sale in Vienna.

With an extensive range of financial services, Anglobank developed into the largest competitor of the Austrian Creditanstalt founded by Anselm Salomon von Rothschild. In addition to London and Vienna, it was represented in all crown countries with an extensive branch network. In Vienna alone, the company had 17 branches in 13 districts. Anglo-Österreichische Bank also held a large stake in one of Italy's largest banks, Banca Commerciale Italiana. In addition, she was strongly involved in the German banking industry and participated in the founding and with a high share capital in:

• Bayerische Vereinsbank in Munich (1869) Anglo-Deutsche Bank in Hamburg (1871) Austrian-Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt (1871) Bank für Brau-Industrie in Dresden (1899) Deutsche Vereinsbank in Frankfurt (1871) Deutsche Nationalbank in Bremen (1871) Centralbank für Industrie und Handel in Berlin (1871) Disconto-Gesellschaft in Leipzig (1873)

Among the leading figures of Anglobank in the 1860s and 1870s were Eugen Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau, Julius von Kunzek, Carl von Mayer, Leon Fürst Sapieha as well as Rudolf and Gustav von Schlesinger. After the Vienna stock market crash, which temporarily threw the company back from 2nd to 5th place among Vienna's major banks, bourgeois shareholders increasingly gained influence on the bank's business orientation, such as Wilhelm Franz Exner, the brothers Adolf and Julius Landesberger (the latter from Antburg from 1906), the industrial families Petschek and Schicht.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Anglobank held a leading position in the financing of the Austro-Hungarian lignite mining and in the issuance of government bonds. In doing so, it gained economic systemic relevance. Like all large companies, Anglo-Österreichische Bank brought its interests into the political and social opinion-forming process through lobbying. In addition to participating in various newspaper publishers, she was, for example, involved in the daily newspaper Die Presse and significantly in the founding and financing of the magazine Der Österreichische Volkswirt, which developed into a leading economic policy medium in Austria-Hungary and the later successor states and usefully reflected the positions of Anglobank.

In 1913, the company had twice as many branches as the considerably larger Creditanstalt and only slightly less than the leading Wiener Bankverein in this respect. On the eve of the First World War, the Anglo-Austrian Bank was linked to industrial companies throughout Cisleithania and beyond in Hungary, Italy and Germany. While the industrial start-up business almost completely lost its importance between 1914 and 1918, the ongoing banking business during the war was the focus of the work. In addition, there was the financing of state armaments requirements, such as the private placement of war bonds and the granting of advances on the various war bond issues.

The collapse of the dual monarchy had a serious impact on Anglobank's business. More than 50% of the most important assets were in the successor states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Specifically, 33% of the Bank's shareholdings were held in Austria, 45% in Czechoslovakia, 11% in Yugoslavia and 11% in Hungary and Romania. The branch network of the Anglo-Österreichische Bank was reduced immediately after the end of the war, but until 1921/22 it was still divided into:

• 29 branches in Czechoslovakia 22 branches in Vienna 24 branches in the Austrian federal states 3 branches in Hungary 3 branches in Romania 1 branch in Yugoslavia 1 branch in Italy (Trieste

Significant changes occurred after Czechoslovakia declared itself an independent customs territory on 20 February 1919 and introduced the Czechoslovak crown on 25 February 1919. As a result, the major Viennese banks were no longer in a position to cover the capital requirements of their affiliated joint-stock companies on the territory of Czechoslovakia. This change had a different character than in all other Austro-Hungarian successor states: On December 11, 1919, the nationalist government in Prague passed a nostrification law, which forced owners and shareholders of companies in the territory of Czechoslovakia to accept Czechoslovak citizenship and move the headquarters of their companies to Czechoslovakia.

As a result, all foreign banks had to either connect their branches to existing Czechoslovak credit institutions or convert them into new Czechoslovak banks within a given time frame. In the meantime, however, the Bank of England had succeeded in winning over the Bank of England as a major shareholder of Anglobank, in particular through the mediation of the Petschek family. Its governor, Montagu Norman, did not even think of giving up control of the bank. Rather, he intended to influence the central banks of the newly formed countries with the help of Anglobank.

The balance sheet of the Anglo-Österreichische Bank showed assets of 4,219,992,786 crowns as at 31 December 1919. With retroactive effect, the General Assembly on 25 April 1920 decided on a profit distribution of 10.83% for 1917, 6.25% for 1918 and 10% for 1919. At the same time, the shareholders approved a capital increase from 150,000,000 crowns to 200,000,216 crowns. This process formed the basis for one of the last major coups of the Austro-Hungarian industrial and financial elite: the founding of the Bank in Liechtenstein AG (BiL, today LGT Group), which (initially) began operations on 24 November 1920 as a subsidiary of the Anglo-Austrian Bank.

A main reason for the establishment of BiL was the goal of Austrian companies and banks to merge their subsidiaries, which were isolated in the formed successor states, into holding companies and to have them managed by a bank in a neutral country. Austrian, Swiss and Liechtenstein lawyers worked out the legal structure of these groups of companies together, on the basis of which the first holding companies founded by BiL were created. As a result, the bank became a pioneer of the holding business in Liechtenstein.

In the next step, the Anglo-Österreichische Bank moved its headquarters from Vienna to London on 7 October 1921. On 27 March 1922, Anglo-Austrian Bank was founded, which took over the business of Anglo-Österreichische Bank with all its syndicated holdings. The conversion balance showed a reserve, i.e. a fortune of 125 billion crowns. At the same time, on 12 April 1922, the Anglo-Čechoslovakische Bank began operations in Czechoslovakia, whose shares were wholly owned by Anglo-Austrian Bank until 1927.

Anglo-Austrian Bank

Gathering in front of a branch of the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Vienna, probably during the hyperinflation of 1921/22

Founded on March 27, 1922 and based in London, Anglo-Austrian Bank took over all assets and liabilities of Anglo-Austrian Bank. The former share capital of 200 million kroner was converted to 650,000 pounds sterling. About two-thirds of the ordinary shares remained in the possession of the Austrian and other pre-war owners who had now become citizens of a successor state. These were mostly small shareholders who, in contrast to the major shareholder, the Bank of England, had hardly any influence on the company despite nominally the same rights. This was also reflected in the allocation of seats on the supervisory body: the new board of directors consisted of ten representatives of the Bank of England and six representatives of the previous shareholders.

The Bank of England achieved this position through a barter: it took over debts of Anglobank group companies that had arisen before or during the First World War, but mainly during the hyperinflation of 1921/22, and in return received preferred shares and proof of indebtedness from the Anglobank ( English: certificates of indebtedness) in the value of the debt. This also gave the Bank of England influence over credit policy. Unlike domestic institutes, the Anglobank extended loans generously from then on and placed less emphasis on the cash flow of the borrowers when lending. Inevitably, not only the Anglobank, but also more and more large Austrian companies became dependent on the Bank of England.

By express order of the Bank of England, the Anglo-Austrian Bank was to broker capital between England and Austrian industry. Against this background, the Bank of England tried vehemently to prevent the establishment of the new Austrian central bank, which was planned for the summer of 1922. On her behalf, the English board of directors of the Anglobank wrote a letter to David Lloyd George, the English Prime Minister, pointing out the "urgent need" to support the Austrian government through external "aid measures", "which alone could prevent serious crises". . The founding of a central bank would, as they also wrote in the letter, not achieve lasting success, the end effect would only be a weakening of those private institutions whose strength is one of the most important factors for the reconstruction of Austria.

Austrian financial experts, on the other hand, took the view that only a central bank independent of foreign influence would be able to pursue policies in the interests of the Austrian economy. According to them, Austrian industry is “extraordinarily dependent on foreign banks”, which is why the influence of the National Bank must be strengthened from the outset “in order to make the capital primarily available for domestic production and to maintain it”. Ultimately, the Austrian National Council commissioned the Minister of Finance with a federal law of July 24, 1922 to set up a central bank. On January 1, 1923, it began operations as the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) and pursued the goal of being independent of the state and independent of external influences.

Nevertheless, the Bank of England succeeded in strengthening its influence on the European central banks and massively influencing Austria's financial situation through deflationary measures. Robert Charles Kay from the Bank of England, and later Anton van Gyn, sat on the OeNB's supervisory board as official observers and financial controllers, which Austrian government officials felt was a humiliation. In fact, the Austrian state was largely unworthy of credit in the interwar period. If he received credit, it was only under unfavorable economic and often political conditions. Ultimately, foreign banks decided on credit options. This economic and political imbalance had a major impact on the course of the Austrian banking crisis.

The Bank of England used the Anglobank as its main channel to assert its interests. The banking operations and industrial conglomerates of the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Central and Southeastern Europe were successively integrated into the business structure of the Bank of England. The most important group companies and cash cows of the Anglo-Austrian Bank directly in Austria included:

Austro-Daimler

Austro-Fiat

Puch works

Brevillier & Urban

Schoeller-Bleckmann Steel Works

Enzesfeld metal works

Universal Bau AG

Powder factory Skodawerke-Wetzler AG

ELIN AG

DELKA shoe industry and trade AG

Herlango AG

Josef Manner & Comp. Inc

Bed feather and sheet factory Adolf Gans AG[1]

In 1924 Anglo-Austrian Bank had 18 branches in Vienna, 13 in the Austrian provinces, two in Hungary, two in Romania, one in Yugoslavia and three in Italy. However, the Anglobank was only able to fulfill its intended function as a “capital broker” for industry between England and the new states in the Danube region to a very limited extent. English policy was largely responsible for this failure. Because the separation of states brought about by the victorious powers of the First World War and the artificial dismemberment of central Europe led to a disrupted division of labor among the peoples who depended on one another and to increased efforts towards self-sufficiency.

The management of the Anglobank, ergo the Bank of England, recognized the cause of the failure. Leading employees have repeatedly criticized the “customs wall policy” of the Czechoslovak government in particular. However, they emphasized that in all successor states the restrictions on free trade would lead to serious crises. The representatives of the Anglobank repeatedly called for a reversal of the current policy and declared: "The true solution to the Central European problem lies in closer economic cooperation between the countries that used to form the economic unit of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy."

Their suggestions went unheeded. By 1925, the Southeast European business had collapsed completely, which resulted in the closure of the branches in these countries. Moreover, due to inflation, the remaining industrial and financial holdings in Austria did not yield sufficiently high profits. Only the capital links in Czechoslovakia were profitable. This made the Anglo-Czechoslovakian Bank the most important asset of the Anglo-Austrian Bank at the time. In January 1925, the London controllers determined that the balance sheet of Anglobank's Austrian branch in Vienna would be in deficit for 1924. This gave concrete form to the Bank of England's considerations of giving up the Austrian base of the Anglo-Austrian Bank.

The company's management officially announced that it would "reduce its involvement throughout Central Europe and place it on a new, less risky basis." It had long since been a done deal to sell the Anglo-Austrian Bank's foreign branches as soon as possible and to only operate on the continent through "first-class local banks" in the future. In plain language, this meant penetrating even larger banks. The first step in this direction was to be the exchange of all branches and shares of the Anglo-Austrian Bank in Italy to Banca Italo-Britannica in January 1926. In return, the Anglo-Austrian Bank received shares in Banca Italo-Britannica. A few months later, the English representatives of the Anglobank also began exploratory talks in Austria.

At the same time, the London head office appointed Zoltan Hajdu, the head of the Budapest branch, as general director for Austria, who now initiated a restrictive course in the bank's credit policy and the downsizing of the 2,000-strong administrative structure in Austria. Negotiations began with Wiener Bankverein before the focus of sales talks shifted to Creditanstalt. Finally, part of the Anglo-Austrian Bank was sold to the Creditanstalt on June 12, 1926, but many of the bank's shareholdings in Austria also went to a Dutch holding company. The Creditanstalt did not take over the employees of the Anglobank.

After the sale of the Vienna branches, the Anglo-Austrian Bank merged with the British Trade Corporation (founded 1917) on September 1, 1926 to form the Anglo-International Bank. The merger, like the sale of the Austrian business, took place via the heads of the Austrian ordinary shareholders. They learned about the decisions of the London headquarters from the newspapers. Only in January 1927 was an extraordinary general assembly convened. This then revealed the complete elimination of the original sole owners, the Austrian shareholders.

Not a single Austrian member of the General Council of the Anglo-Austrian Bank, i.e. not a single representative of the former Austro-Hungarian shareholders, received a seat and a vote on the Board of Directors of the Anglo-International Bank. Although the previous shareholders became part owners of the new institute, they only received one share in Anglo-International Bank for four shares in Anglo-Austrian Bank. This reduced their ownership from 100 to 25 percent. There was no vote on the conversion. According to the English regulations, the Austrian shareholders did not even have the right to appear at the general meeting in London.

The sale of the Vienna branch in 1926 has often been described as the collapse of the Anglo-Österreichische Bank and the first step in banking concentration in Vienna. Formally, however, the Anglo-Österreichische Bank had already ceased to exist in 1921 and was a foreign, purely British bank under the name Anglo-Austrian Bank. From this point in time, the ordinary shareholders had hardly any say in the management of the institute. The then renowned Viennese business newspaper Die Börse stated in retrospect about the end of the Anglobank in Austria (fragments): The bank played an extremely important role in the history of Austria's reconstruction. She did this by building a bridge between London and Vienna, by attracting British financial circles to Austria at a time when the horizon was still completely overcast, and by persuading Austria that powerful forces were at work, to help him. But this beneficial result ceased when the Austrian stabilization plan was implemented and the connection with the Bank of England began to bear fruit. It was not until the Creditanstalt took over the Anglobank branches in Vienna that the Austrian economy became spectacularly dependent on the Bank of England. For the Anglo-International Bank, which was now under the total control of the Bank of England, subsequently acted as one of the largest shareholders in the largest and most important Austrian bank. The deal included not only a large shareholding by Anglo-International Bank in Creditanstalt, but also the transfer of all of Creditanstalt's previous English foreign business to Anglo-International Bank. As a representative of the Anglobank, Zoltan Hajdu first became a member of the board of directors and later a member of the board of the Creditanstalt. Ultimately, the Bank of England, through Anglo-International Bank, was not only a shareholder but also a creditor of Creditanstalt.

Anglo-International Bank

Portal of the former London Anglobank branch on Lombard Street, built in 1910

Founded on September 1, 1926 and based in London, Anglo-International Bank began trading on October 1, 1926. The initial capital was £2.36 million. The main shareholders were the Bank of England and Glyn, Mills & Co. The new institute was no longer a universal bank, but functioned as a "banking bank". It focused on replacing direct obligations to trading companies abroad with loans to foreign banks.

The Anglo-International Bank continued the business policy practiced in Austria of selling foreign branches of the former Anglobank to local banks in exchange for shares. Until 1927, Anglo-International Bank's main asset was Anglo-Czechoslovak Bank. She then sold larger blocks of shares. The Budapest branch (Anglo-Hungarian Bank) continued to exist for some time and was taken over by the British and Hungarian Bank in the early 1930s. In return, the Anglo-International Bank received shares in the British and Hungarian Bank.

The Anglobank sold its branch in Agram to the Croatian Escompte- and Hypotheken, and its branch in Belgrade to the Bosnian Agrarian and Commercial Bank. This "sale" also represented an exchange transaction "branch and associated trading company for blocks of shares and seat on the supervisory board of the respective bank". After the merger of these institutes to form the Yugoslav Union Bank, the Anglobank acquired ownership of the largest and thus systemically important bank in Yugoslavia. It did the same in Romania and with other central European banks.

Substituting loans to foreign banks for direct obligations to foreign companies left Anglo-International Bank dependent on the fate of those foreign banks. The fact that the Bank of England was not pursuing economic but political goals with the Anglo-International Bank was evident from various factors. On the one hand, the Anglo-International Bank did not pay any dividends during its existence, but used the annual surpluses for depreciation. On the other hand, the board of directors consisted almost exclusively of representatives of the Bank of England and politicians. These included Herbert A. Lawrence as Chairman, Peter Bark (sir from 1934) as Managing Director, and Supervisory Board members including Sir Otto Ernst Niemeyer, Sir Gordon Nairne, Lord Faringdon Alexander Henderson, Sir Henry Strakosch, Sir Harry Viscount, Sir William Barclay Peat , all of whom were also shop stewards of the British Government and some were also members of the House of Commons or House of Lords.

In purely formal terms, the Bank of England was considered an autonomous institution. In fact, after the end of World War I, the British government gained increasing influence over the Bank of England. Montagu Norman, the governor of the Bank of England, described the relationship between the bank and the government as early as 1926: In purely formal terms, the Bank of England was considered an autonomous institution. In fact, after the end of World War I, the British government gained increasing influence over the Bank of England. Montagu Norman, the governor of the Bank of England, described the relationship between the bank and the government as early as 1926: Through the Anglobank, the Bank of England had succeeded in penetrating almost all major banks in the Austro-Hungarian successor states. From October 1926, the Anglo-International Bank only processed all transactions via the headquarters in the City of London. This was located in the bank building built by the Anglo-Austrian Bank in 1910 at Lombard Street 24-28 (formerly number 31). With the closure of the branches in Central Europe, the Anglobank evaded the foreign banking supervisory authorities, so that they could not check the solidity of the institute. On the other hand, the lack of customer proximity contributed to the deterioration of the cost-income ratio, which the controllers must have been aware of, but obviously played no role in business policy.

Zoltan Hajdu, who floated in Montagu Norman's orbit as a puppet and unconditionally represented the interests of the Bank of England, acted as chief representative of the Anglo-International Bank in Central Europe. As the only continental European representative, Hajdu received a seat on the board of directors of Anglo-International Bank. At the same time, as a shop steward of the Bank of England, he was a member of the board of directors of the Bodenkreditanstalt, a member of the board of directors of the Creditanstalt and the Amstelbank, and a member of the supervisory boards of large banks and industrial companies in Yugoslavia, Romania and Hungary. In addition, as a large landowner, Hajdu had an estate and numerous properties in western Hungary.

From the second half of the 1920s, the economic situation improved in Germany and Austria. Although the German banks were also extremely vulnerable, as in Austria, not a few Austrian commercial and industrial companies increasingly established business relationships with German banks because of the lack of belief in the economic strength of Austria, which had become smaller. In fact, the Austrian economy was characterized by a high degree of foreign dependence and a high trade deficit during the 1920s. Around 70% of Austria's large-scale industry was controlled by foreign - half of it by German - finance capital in 1930.

The victorious powers viewed with extreme suspicion the growing tendencies towards an economic union with Germany that had existed in Austria since the end of the First World War. The Foreign Office summarized the situation as early as 1925: If Austria is not yet convinced of the possibility of separate existence until Germany fully recovers, agitation for the Anschluss may become a serious factor in German affairs. But then the success of the agitation in Austria will depend to a large extent on which government is in charge in Germany. Germany will probably sooner or later gain an economic foothold in Austria, and economic union will lead to political union. But that is very unlikely for many years. As long as Germany is too weak to strive for the union itself, the question cannot become acute. An Austrian approach to the League of Nations on this matter would no doubt be rejected, and a customs union will meet with opposition from Austria's neighbors and from France. To counteract this development Great Britain provided the Austrian economy and the government with more support loans than any other country. At the same time, the Bank of England tried to expand its influence in Germany, for which the Anglo-International Bank should also serve as an instrument. Representatives of the Anglobank officially announced that they would no longer focus their business on the Danube region but on Germany. As a result, at the request of the Bank of England, Anglo-International Bank undertook a number of liabilities, including the issue of a German government bond. However, the company was unable to gain a foothold in Germany in the long term. The German financial economy had initially recovered to such an extent that in June 1928 the Deutsche Bank wanted to buy the Bank of England's stake in the Anglo-International Bank. The Bank of England, of course, turned down the offer.

Between 1925 and 1930, the foreign debt of the major Austrian banks rose from around 370 million to 980 million schillings. The English banks in particular stood out with their generous granting of short-term foreign loans. However, US investors also increasingly appeared as lenders. This led to a constant oversupply, which led observers to speak of the "pushiness" of short-term loans from Western banks. On the other hand, German banks were interested in long-term investment of their funds and long-term customer loyalty, which Austrian companies also preferred in view of the calculability of liabilities. Incidentally, Austrian interest rates were higher than German for almost the entire 1920s.

Various members of the General Council of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank repeatedly called for a reduction in the discount rate in order to curb the undesirably high inflow of short-term foreign credits. However, they could not assert themselves against the financial controllers of the Bank of England and Richard Reisch, the President of the National Bank, because they saw no need for defensive measures in the event of a temporary external debt. They assumed that "serious institutes" would not pass on short-term foreign loans as investment loans. But that is exactly what Austrian credit institutions did, above all the Bodencreditanstalt, which was the first of the big banks to close its doors in 1929.

To this day it is unclear what role Zoltan Hajdu, ergo the Anglo-International Bank, played in the looming Austrian banking crisis. Hajdu had been a member of the board of directors of the Bodencreditanstalt since 1922 and, at the same time, had been a member of the Supervisory Board of the Creditanstalt since July 1926 as a representative of the Anglo-International Bank. As a shop steward at the same time for the Bank of England, he proposed a merger of the Bodencreditanstalt with the Creditanstalt as early as the turn of the year 1927/28. The project was implemented in November 1929 against the massive resistance of the President of the Creditanstalt, Louis Rothschild. Zoltan Hajdu led the merger negotiations as a member of the Executive Committee. After the merger, he moved from the Supervisory Board of Creditanstalt to the Management Board and was appointed Director of Creditanstalt. In addition, Otto Ernst Niemeyer and Peter Bark remained on the Creditanstalt Supervisory Board as representatives of the Anglobank and official confidants of the English government.

On March 5, 1931, Germany and Austria decided on a customs union without giving the victorious powers any prior information. Great Britain and France used different strategies that caused the German-Austrian project to fail in the autumn of 1931. On the one hand, a formal protest was lodged at the announcement of a customs union, since the Versailles Treaty prohibited the two states from rapprochement. On the other hand, foreign creditors withdrew loans by leaps and bounds. In addition, France officially declared that it would "reclaim short-term debt securities from Austrian and German banks and not extend them any longer." Shortly thereafter, the largest insolvency case in Austrian banking history occurred.

The Creditanstalt, which through the takeover of the Anglo-Austrian Bank and the Bodencreditanstalt had become by far the most important bank in Austria with an extensive network of industrial groups, had until then been regarded as a completely secure institute. On May 8, 1931, the company announced that it had suffered extraordinary losses of 140 million schillings. A run on the bank began because customers mistrusted a quick restructuring. The announcement of the losses at that time was apparently coerced by Zoltan Hajdu, who refused to sign a company balance sheet that he had commissioned himself.

This balance sheet showed that the bank's industrial holdings had been overvalued and that the merger with the Bodencreditanstalt had resulted in losses of 60 million schillings. The exact background as to why the management of the Creditanstalt was overwhelmed by the sudden urge to be honest and agreed to a market valuation of its assets at the most unfavorable and worst possible moment is still unclear to this day. The British historian Harold James considers it most likely (to put it satirically) that "Zoltan Hajdu experienced some sort of religious conversion and thereafter felt unable to live with the dishonest accounts his institution presented for two years and he had signed.”

As an immediate consequence, the collapse of the Creditanstalt triggered a severe currency crisis, which again brought Austria into dependence on the Western financial powers. The Austrian Ministry of Justice filed claims for damages of 20 million schillings and on October 15, 1931 applied to the Vienna public prosecutor's office for the confiscation of assets and preliminary investigations against Zoltan Hajdu and other directors of the Creditanstalt. However, criminal proceedings could not be initiated because Hajdu, like most of the other responsible board members, had fled abroad and a voluntary return to Austria was not to be expected.

No investigations were initiated against the members of the Supervisory Board of Anglo-International Bank (Bark and Niemeyer). They helped Creditanstalt get a generous bridging loan from the Bank of England. The preliminary proceedings against Zoltan Hajdu were also discontinued in November 1933. He remained on the board of directors of the Anglobank until 1938 and bought another property in Hungary for 500,000 schillings. Hajdu was even able to keep his villa in Vienna, from where he managed the business of the Anglo-International Bank in Yugoslavia from then on.

However, the Anglobank's image on the continent was badly damaged. After the events, Herbert A. Lawrence was replaced as chairman by Sir Bertram Hornsby, who was chairman of the Central Bank of Egypt from 1921 to 1931. Hornsby described the work of the Anglo-International Bank as "not good advertising for the British financial world"; and he failed to improve either the reputation or the financial situation of the institute. More and more small shareholders sold their remaining Anglo shares. Ultimately, the Bank of England bailed out Anglo-International Bank with £1 million and also bought up Anglo shares on the open market to prevent a full share price collapse. The efforts were unsuccessful: in November 1933 the Bank of England decided to initiate a "privately organized liquidation" of the Anglo-International Bank.

In December 1933, more than half of the staff still employed in London were made redundant. Montagu Norman, however, kept the plans a secret because, in his judgment, a formal bankruptcy would have permanently damaged the prestige of British finance. Thus the Anglobank continued through the remainder of the 1930s, although it did not generate any new revenue streams. In 1943 the Bank of England put a loss since 1927 on its support of Anglobank, including share purchases, at around £1.6 million. The Anglobank medium was not a success for the English government, either economically or politically.

A year later, the Bank of England transferred all of its Anglo holdings, along with what little remaining debt, to London-based banking house Glyn, Mills & Co. They placed the institution in a specially formed trust called Continental Assets Realization Trust Ltd. Formally, the Anglo-International Bank remained commercially active until 1951, but it was not until 1962 that it was finally liquidated. To protect the trademark rights, a shell company has existed since 1963, which indicates its origin in the Anglo-Austrian Bank founded in 1863.

literature

• Eduard March: Austrian banking policy in the time of the great turning point 1913-1923. Using the example of the Creditanstalt für Handel und Gewerbe. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-486-50761-3. Charlotte Natmessnig: British financial interests in Austria. The Anglo-Austrian Bank, Vienna, Böhlau Verlag, 1998, ISBN 978-3-205-98912-7

itemizations

[[Category:Austria–United Kingdom relations]] [[Category:Banks based in the City of London]] [[Category:Companies of Austria-Hungary]] [[Category:1863 establishments]]