UPDATED: Earlier today, I received a Right of Reply from ECCM Bank. You can read the right of reply in full. I also received a very threatening letter by Patrick J Galea, an associate professor from the University of Malta, on behalf of the bank to take down the article. You can read the letter here.
I have also been contacted by Johannes Leibetseder, the Head of Global Public Affairs & Communications of Kronospan, and we spoke over the phone. He told me in very clear terms that Kronospan had divested and sold all of its assets in Russia and Belarus in 2023. He told me there was also a press release about this.
The problem with the press release is that it only states that Kronospan has separated its business and didn’t mention the word “divestment”. As custom, “separation” of business is not normally considered as a “sale”, and you can see here where Kronospan is also mentioned. Separation and divestment of business can be very different. Some European companies in Russia separated their businesses, handed over the management to the Russians, and still own a stake of their companies in Russia.
As of December 2022 Kronospan was still interested in investing further in Russia and this was also confirmed by Johannes Leibetseder. When pressed as to why the company made such a change of heart so quickly, he admitted that this was due to sanctions. However, he also told me that Kronospan has operations in Poland and also in Ukraine where it currently has 900 employees. He also told me that Kronospan is not connected with Raiffeisen Bank.
Here, I am being fair and transparent, both to the company and to the general public which deserves explanations. ECCM Bank still wants to open a libel case because we refuse to take down any content, especially if these requests are based on threats. If they do, we will simply accept the libel case as just one of the many cases we have ongoing in Court. As practice, we always update articles without changing or deleting content so as to remain loyal to the values of consistency, history and transparency.
Malta has a bank owned by Austrian businessmen who are doing big business in Russia. The bank, which fell out of the radar of the Maltese press, is called ECCM Bank and has been operating in Malta since 1996. It also listed in the Malta Stock exchange. The bank was also subject to an FIAU investigation about a €100 million transaction whit an undeclared source.
ECCM was previously owned by Raiffeisen Bank International AG and was sold to Banasino Investments Ltd and Hillwood Insurance Company Ltd. Both Banasino Investments and Hillwood Insurance Company are owned by Kronospan, a global woodworking multinational that is currently operating in Russia.
Raiffeisen Bank is the last major European bank operating in Russia and is currently supplying Russian companies involved in the war effort in Ukraine with loans and credit. Austria is also known as a major money-laundering hub for Russia. Raiffeisen still has a dedicated team for Malta. Raiffeisen bank is connected to Kronospan, at least by association. In 2021, Raiffeisen Bank gave Kronospan up to €315 million to invest in Russia. There was a question in the European Parliament about this issue.
Kronospan is also still operating in Russia to a large extent. They even made further investments in Russia while Russia was bombing and murdering people in Ukraine. Even earlier, Kronospan’s investments in Russia were supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which historically has been used as a tool for the Russian government to obtain investments and further influences in Eastern Europe. Kronospan also exports wood to Malta from Bulgaria. Kronospan in Russia has rebranded and changed their management team, but the group still owns its Russian companies.
According to the bank’s website. One of the bank’s directors, Matthias Kiandl, pictured here, is a board member on multiple Kronospan companies. This is not actually all of the truth because Matthias Kiandl shares the same name of the founder of Kronospan, so he is most probably a family member of the family that owns the conglomerate.
ECCM Bank says it is mainly involved in lending to corporate clients mainly in the woodworking business. We will be further anlysing the public documents and conduct research on the bank’s operations in Malta to continue with our investigation.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply