Austro billionaire cedes 20 percent to his son and two managers. Graf speaks of “generation change”.
The Novomatic owner Johann Graf is giving a fifth of his billion dollar gambling empire to his son and two Novomatic managers. Graf is giving Thomas Graf and the two long-term companions and confidants Birgit Wimmer and Ryszard Presch 20 percent of the Novomatic umbrella company Novo Invest GmbH, the company announced on Thursday. Novo Invest GmH, which holds 90 percent of Novomatic AG, was previously owned by Johann Graf in full.
Who of the three receives how much did not emerge from the broadcast. Presch has been managing director of Novo Invest since 2017, Wimmer since 2018. Apart from his role as owner of Novo Invest GmbH, Johann Graf himself has no other function in the corporate network of the Novomatic Group. The company speaks of a “generation change”. The share transfers still require the approval of the responsible authorities and international gambling authorities, including those in the USA.
According to the information, the 74-year-old company founder initiates the generation change on the occasion of the company's 40th anniversary. Graf junior has been with Novomatic for 30 years, including as head of the Greentube subsidiary. He is 55 years old. Presch is 70 and Wimmer 50. Wimmer is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Swiss NOVO SWISS AG, which holds the remaining 10 percent in Novomatic AG.
30,000 employees worldwide
Graf had started importing pinball machines in 1980. With gaming machines and the operation of casinos and betting shops, it became a multi-billion dollar group with currently around 30,000 employees worldwide. According to earlier information, Novomatic employs 3,100 people in Austria, around 1,500 of them at Admiral and 1,200 at the company's headquarters in Gumpoldskirchen in Lower Austria.
Count of the second richest Austrian
The financial news service Bloomberg estimates Graf's fortune at around 10 billion dollars, which is the equivalent of over eight billion euros. He is the second richest Austrian after Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz.
Novo Invest GmbH should therefore have a value in the billions. The press release speaks of a “procedure which repeatedly underpins the generosity of the well-known down-to-earth company founder”. With the decision, the unique family orientation was retained.
Graf's generosity also led the public prosecutor to investigate last year. Graf is said to have given Novomatic employees and their relatives large amounts of money privately. There are a total of around 160 such donation agreements – some amount to millions. Graf's lawyer emphasized in August 2020 that all donations “for purely private motives” were made without consideration and had been reported to Finanz.
