Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) announced today that it had reduced its voting rights in Austrian Airlines AG to a level below 5%. CSFB took over the 10 % package of shares, originally held by Swissair, following the bankruptcy of the Swiss carrier. CSFB disposed of an initial block of shares in July 2002, reducing its package from 10 % to around 5 %.

The current shareholder structure of Austrian Airlines AG is as follows:

Free float 43.2 %
?-IAG 39.7 % // Austrian institutional investors 10.6 % // Austrian Airlines - Stock Option Programme* 5.0 %
// Air France 1.5 %

* The 5 % share held by Austrian Airlines itself can be clarified as follows: in order to lay the ground for the introduction of a stock option programme, Austrian Airlines decided to repurchase a total of 1.7 million shares in summer 2002. This was equivalent to 5 % of the issued share capital. The programme is intended to grant future stock options to senior executives and members of the Board of Management of the company or an associated company. The participation of the senior executives in this programme, which was linked to their own investment in Austrian Airlines shares, was considerable, providing clear evidence of growing confidence in the company.

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