The wisdom of prudence

Erste Bank's chief risk officer, Bernhard Spalt, discusses the tricks of successful mergers and acquisitions, financial crime prevention and managing problematic credit risk boundary issues in central and eastern Europe. By Nick Kochan

climbing-risk

Bernhard Spalt had been at Vienna-based Erste Bank for eight years when he received the call from headquarters to go to the Czech Republic. The result was a lesson in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) risk that would influence his entire career.

Erste had acquired Ceska Sporitelna, the largest Czech Savings Bank in that country, from the government. Ceska had lent heavily to the government and was now burdened with massive bad loans. It was also extremely inefficient and overstaffed. Erste had one

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