Shares in several thermal spas in Austria (including Therme Wien, Geinberg, St. Martins), the technical management of the Vienna General Hospital (AKH Vienna) and the Austrian Vamed project business will be taken over, as the company announced in a press release on Wednesday.
The hospital services area (30 percent of sales) will be transferred to Vamed’s majority owner Fresenius. The international project business (“Health Tech Engineering”) is to be “gradually and orderly reduced”. This process is expected to be “largely completed” by 2026. The current project contracts are being fulfilled. The international project business recently accounted for around 15 percent of Vamed’s sales. “We are striving for socially acceptable solutions for the affected employees,” says Vamed boss Klaus Schuster.
According to the Fresenius annual report, Vamed recently had a total of just over 20,000 employees. Vamed recorded sales of 2.36 billion euros in 2023, but was in the red. The operating loss (EBIT) was 16 million euros in the previous year.
It is unclear how many employees will lose their jobs
A large number of Vamed employees are employed in the group’s rehabilitation clinics, the majority of which were sold to the investment company PAI Partners last week. According to Porr boss Karl-Heinz Strauss, all Vamed employees taken over will keep their jobs. “There are more than 1,150 colleagues who we warmly welcome to Porr and Strabag. Their jobs are safe, we will even expand,” said Strauss in the Ö1 “Mittagsjournal”. If you include the sub-companies run by Vamed in addition to the direct employees, the consortium will take on around 3,000 employees, according to company sources.
Vamed is 77 percent owned by the German healthcare group Fresenius, 10 percent by B&C Holding and 13 percent by the Republic of Austria. In May 2023, Fresenius boss Michael Sen reported serious structural problems at Vamed and announced an inspection. The German DAX group announced at the time that it would only treat the clinic service provider and spa operator as an investment in the future, despite a majority stake.
The insolvency of the now closed “la pura women’s health resort” in the Horn district of Lower Austria at the turn of the year showed that things weren’t going well at Vamed recently. Gars Betriebs GmbH was handed over by Vamed Vitality World to a new owner on December 28, 2023. He filed for bankruptcy less than a month later.
Joint investment company
The acquisition of Vamed’s Austrian business is to take place via a joint investment company in which Porr and Strabag will each hold a 50 percent stake. The transaction is still subject to approval by the relevant competition authorities. “We want to further increase our depth of added value in this segment and expand our expertise in technical facility management, specifically in the demanding medical sector,” says Strabag boss Klemens Haselsteiner. “We look forward to working in partnership with the City of Vienna as part of the operational management and construction projects of the AKH – we are aware of the great responsibility we are taking on,” said Porr CEO Karl-Heinz Strauss.
As Strabag announced, Strabag’s supervisory board still has to approve the transaction. According to Porr, the purchase price will be paid in installments. The seller of the shares is Vamed AG. The competition authorities also still have to examine the takeover of the shares.
ÖBAG, which holds the Republic’s shares in Vamed AG, explained in the Ö1-Mittagsjournal that it had supported and accompanied the strategy adopted by Fresenius. “It was important that jobs were maintained and locations secured. This is guaranteed with the selected companies.”
