Austria's Hypo Alpe-Adria Bank gets new Supervisory Board

Austria's troubled bank Hypo Alpe-Adria has got a new supervisory board that the Austrian finance minister believes should guarantee the professionalization and depoliticization of this body of the bank.

Contracts signed with six former members of the Supervisory Board were unexpectedly terminated Tuesday, and the new board was appointed at an extraordinary general meeting on Friday, the Austrian news agency APA has reported.

From now on, the Supervisory Board will have five instead of six members, and presidential duties will be assumed by Herbert Walter, the former CEO of Germany's Dresdner Bank, who will replace Rudolph Scholten in that position, the web portal Seebiz reports.

Other members of the Supervisory Board are Wolfgan Hartmann from Germany's Commerzbank, Alois Hochegger, the president of the Association of Austrian Saving Banks, Regina Friedrich, the former managing director of a freight-forwarding company, and Christine Sumper-Billinger from the Federal Data Center of the Finance Ministry.

Austrian Finance Minister Michael Spindelleger expects the new team to carry out the "professionalization and depoliticization of the Supervisory Board," it is said in a release.

The Bank was nationalized in 2009 because it was brought to the edge of bankruptcy after excessive expansion in the Balkans over a period of 10 years. So far, this bank has received over EUR 5 billion in state assistance.