"Important facility"

Poker over rehab center: Kapfenberg now examining purchase

The therapy center in Kapfenberg is to be sold.

(Bild: Juergen Fuchs)

The Kapfenberg therapy center is to be sold to a French investment company. This is causing unease. But local politicians still have a joker in their hand - and could strike themselves.

"My mother had a stroke, I was there every day back then and I know what a great job the team does." According to Matthäus Bachernegg, SPÖ mayor of Kapfenberg since this year, you won't find anyone else in his town who has a bad word to say about the neurological therapy center (NTK) - which specializes in stroke patients. "The center is excellently run."

The plans of the previous majority owner Vamed to sell the facility - like almost 20 others in Austria - to the French investment company PAI are therefore met with skepticism in Mürztal. Particularly because PAI has already announced that it will sell the facilities on in a few years' time. It is completely up in the air as to who will then come into the picture.

The therapy center is very important for Kapfenberg. We are therefore prepared to do anything to preserve it in its current form.

Bürgermeister Matthäus Bachernegg

Bild: Traby Jakob/Jakob Traby

No purchase offer has yet been made
"We don't want anything to get worse for the staff or the patients," says Bachernegg. The city, which currently holds ten percent of the shares, is therefore considering exercising its right of first refusal and taking over the therapy center completely (or with a partner). As soon as the city receives a purchase offer, it has three months to make a decision - but nothing has been made yet.

The mayor does not want to name the possible costs, but: "We also bought back the municipal utilities because that was important." At the time, more than seven million euros were put on the table. According to Bachernegg, the NTK is an equally important facility. The state will probably be brought on board for the negotiations. "I can't imagine any party not supporting our project."

One thing is clear: the city wants to be the majority owner in the future. However, it would not operate the NTK itself ("that is not our core task"), but would bring in a professional partner instead.