All clear for Voest
19.09.2003

19th September 2003 will go down as a historical date for the Austrian economy. The privatisation of OIAG’s remaining shares of voestalpine AG was successfully concluded early this morning.

100% privatisation

After the assignment of the shares, the shareholder structure is now as follows:
approximately 30% is held by Upper Austrian investors;
approximately 10% is held by other Austrian investors;
10.3% is held by the employee foundation;
approximately 35% is held by foreign investors;
and a convertible bond was issued for 15% of the capital stock.

This puts Austrian ownership of Voest at over 50%, or at 65% when taking the convertible bond into account

"After the transaction, voestalpine how has a stable Austrian core shareholder structure. 10.2% of the shares are held by the employee foundation. A convertible bond was issued for 15% of the shares, which is equivalent to a postponed sale. OIAG will exercise the voting rights for these shares until they are sold. All requirements of the government mandate are thereby fulfilled in full," reported Dr. Peter Michaelis, Spokesman of the Managing Board of OIAG. Some 1.4 million shares (of a total 7,780,758 shares) went to small retail investors.

Oversubscribed three times – excellent revenue

The secondary public offering of Voest was received with great interest, and the offer was oversubscribed three times. The stock could be sold at € 32.50 per share – more than 60% over the price of € 22 recorded for Voest in March, shortly before the government issued the full privatisation mandate. The sale generated revenue of € 247 million for OIAG, and the convertible bond brought another € 245.2 million. This bond will be converted into Voest shares in 2006; an earlier conversion is possible in principle, but would require approval from the supervisory board of OIAG.

Promising outlook

The stock will also be a profitable investment for the new investors over the medium term. The complete privatisation of the company means that ?all is clear for Voest?; this exemplary Austrian company can now focus all of its energies on its ambitious investment and growth programme, unhampered by political debates. And the economic development that experts are predicting for the company can be seen in the price that OIAG has set for the convertible bond: 41.275 euro per share in 2006.

?These results show that this was without a doubt the right transaction at the right time," summarises OIAG spokeswoman Viktoria Kickinger.

Press contact:
OIAG
Viktoria Kickinger
Tel: +43 1 711 14 240
Mob.: +43 664 101 20 50
Fax: +43 1 711 14 5240
E-mail: viktoria.kickinger@oiag.at