Buy the Wreckage, Extract the Jewels

“Haselsteiner’s first entrepreneurial achievement: In 1977, he took over the construction company Soravia. It was almost as large, also based in Spittal an der Drau, and was Ilbau’s fiercest competitor. He is still proud today of how he vanquished and ultimately absorbed the competitor, wrote Die Zeit. The fight was fierce: “It was him or me, that’s all it was about. It was a fight for survival. If I had lost the game, my career would have been over.” With the takeover, the Soravia family became minority owners of Ilbau; and the then-junior chief Erwin Soravia would go on to become one of Haselsteiner’s closest companions in the following decades. Incidentally, he is almost the same age as Haselsteiner and the father of the well-known brothers Erwin Jr. and Hanno Soravia, who lead the Soravia Group. The company, based in Vienna, operates throughout Europe and specializes in real estate development, facility management, and corporate investments (Private Equity).”

“At the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the company already employed 1,400 people. In the 1930s, the headquarters were then moved to Cologne. After the collapse of the Third Reich, Strabag’s headquarters remained in the Rhine metropolis, which at the time belonged to the British occupation zone. In 1949, the company went public. In 1963, the German Strabag founded an Austrian branch in the prosperous steel city of Linz. This branch was also listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange from 1986 onwards. Initially, Haselsteiner had set his sights on this Austrian Strabag because its parent company was considered a restructuring case: “There was not unwarranted hope that they were willing to part with their Austrian subsidiary,” Haselsteiner said at the time. However, this deal did not come to fruition, but the red-white-red construction magnate snatched up the parent company instead.”

“But in the spring of 1984, still according to the official version, when Pierre Godé called Bernard Arnault to reveal the name of the target company he had found, he wondered if he had gone crazy. Boussac does not meet any of the criteria he has set. The name is certainly known, but it's for the worst; nobody believes in the development potential of a bankrupt and failing group; as for the workforce, which Arnault wanted to be as small as possible, it approaches 30,000 people. Legitimately agitated employees: to save their jobs, the Boussac regularly go on strike, cut down trees, and block the roads of the Vosges valleys where the factories are concentrated...”

“Looking at it, the assets of the group appear considerable. Dior alone, according to an evaluation based on indications from the company, which will prove to be largely underestimated, would be worth around 1 billion francs. This is followed by Conforama (between 600 and 800 million), the Bon Marché-Belle Jardinière group (600 to 700 million), buildings (600 million) and Peaudouce (300 million). Not to mention the stocks valued at 1 billion. In total, nearly 5 billion francs, or nearly three times the amount of liabilities and twice as much as Arnault had estimated in his 1984 plan!”