Živnostenská banka

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Živnostenská banka (ŽB) was founded in 1868 great Czech commercial bank with HVB for 2007 UniCredit Bank Czech Republic is fused.

history

The Živnostenská banka pro Čechy a Moravu v Praze (commercial bank for Bohemia and Moravia in Prague) was founded in 1868 as a joint stock company with the aim of promoting Czech small and medium-sized enterprises in the German-dominated economic system of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. It was the first bank in Austria-Hungary to be supported by Czech shareholders. Important politicians such as František Ladislav Rieger , Ferdinand Urbánek and Jan Stanislav Skrejšovský were elected to the board. The seat was in Prague in the previous building of the current seat of the Czech National Bank, built between 1935 and 1939 .

In 1910, ŽIBA also acquired a minority stake in Srpska kreditna banka (Serbian credit bank) in Belgrade . When the war broke out, the bank had 1,068 employees and had 11 branches in Bohemia and Moravia , but also in Vienna , Krakow , Lviv and Trieste .

After the end of World War I and the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the bank became the most important in the state and grew rapidly. In 1922 ŽB opened a branch in London . Links were also established with French and English banks. The ŽB significantly supported the formation of large companies and held u. a. participations in the heavy machinery group Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk, founded in 1927 . In 1929 ŽB owned 66 Czechoslovak industrial companies and at that time was a strong financier in Central and Eastern Europe.

After Austria was annexed, the Vienna branch of ŽB was merged with Österreichische Länderbank and the Merkurbank belonging to Dresdner Bank to form Länderbank Wien AG as a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank. After the Munich Agreement in September 1938, this also took over the branches of the ŽB in the Sudeten German cities of Reichenberg , Aussig , Karlsbad and Teplitz .

During the Second World War , the commercial bank for Bohemia and Moravia was able to avoid annexation to German banks and tried more or less successfully to protect the interests of the Czech economy. However, from 1943 onwards, the bank's shares in commercial enterprises passed to German owners.

After the end of the war, ŽB, like the other Czechoslovak banks, was nationalized by the Beneš Decree No. 102/45. In 1948 Pražská úvěrní banka (Prague Credit Bank), the former Anglo-Prague bank, was affiliated with ŽB and its New York branch closed in 1949. Until 1950 the ŽB continued to exist as an independent bank with severe legal restrictions. On April 1, 1950, the newly founded Státní banka československá (State Bank of Czechoslovakia) took over all rights and liabilities of Živnostenská banka, which ended its business activities.

In 1956 Živnostenská banka was revived and was given the new function of the Czechoslovak bank for trade with the Comecon countries. The branch in London, which managed all foreign exchange accounts of Czechoslovak citizens living abroad and companies in Czechoslovakia operating abroad, played a special role. In 1988 Živnostenská banka got the company back. In 1992 it was privatized as the first bank in the former Eastern Bloc countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The German BHF-Bank took over 40% of the capital, the IFC 12%. The remaining 48% went to private Czech investors and mutual funds.

In 1997, BHF-Bank sold its majority stake of 46.9% to Bankgesellschaft Berlin . Other major shareholders were IFC and Crédit Commercial de France. In 2000 Bankgesellschaft Berlin increased its stake in ŽB to over 85 percent. On February 11, 2003 UniCredit acquired the majority in Živnostenská banka. On June 30, 2003 the representative office in Bratislava was closed. In 2005 UniCredit also bought HypoVereinsbank . On November 5, 2007, the Czech branch of HypoVereinsbank merged with Živnostenská banka to form UniCredit Bank ČR.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The National Socialist educator Rudolf Lochner described it in "Sudeten Germany. A Contribution to Borderland Education in East Central Germany ”, Berlin-Leipzig 1937, pp. 28–35: Your banks, first and foremost their notorious Živnostenská banka (commercial bank), helped to establish an economic life independent of the Germans (quoted from Der völkische opponent - The Czechs ).
  2. ↑ http://www.mzv.cz/public/b7/a0/58/16700_14945_RM_02_19_04.doc
  3. ↑ http://www.dresdner-bank.de/dresdner-bank/zahlen-und-ffekten/historie/zeitträger/1933-bis-1945.html
  4. ↑ Živnostenská banka v Praze ( Memento from November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ http://aktualne.centrum.cz/ekonomika/domaci-ekonomika/clanek.phtml?id=513119
  6. ↑ http://www.zlate-mince.cz/CRM_Zivnostenska_banka.htm
  7. ↑ http://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_19971117_OTS0032
  8. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from January 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Unicredit  Collection of Images