Raiffeisen Boss Exits With Bank Still Dogged By Russia Question

On the ninth floor of Raiffeisen Bank International’s headquarters overlooking Vienna’s 19th-century Stadtpark, Chief Executive Officer Johann Strobl likes to greet guests with an anecdote of past woe.

He points to a series of window-sized photographs of Icelandic landscapes chosen by a predecessor. They’re stunning, but he notes that they’re also a daily reminder of the pain the island nation caused the bank during the 2008 financial crisis. “We lost a good €1 billion ($1.2 billion) there,” he said, with a sigh, in an interview on Dec. 11.