Georg Stumpf

Georg Stumpf (born 14 September 1972) is an Austrian real estate developer and investor. In 1994, he founded the Stumpf Group.

Early life He was born in the family of Georg Stumpf senior (1920-2004), a wealthy entrepreneur and friend of the former Federal Chancellor Franz Vranitzky. Stumpf senior built the Wiener Stadthalle and the ORF Center Küniglberg together with the architect Roland Rainer.

Georg Stumpf Jr. attended the HTL in Vienna, from which he graduated. From 1991 to 1993 he studied business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, graduating with a master's degree. At the same time he studied law, but did not finish his degree because he was missing one exam.

Career In 1997 his father gave Georg Stumpf Jr. a start-up of 1 million shillings. With the support of the banking consortium consisting of Creditanstalt and a Commerzbank subsidiary, Stumpf invested in building the Millennium Tower in Vienna. At the time it was completed (1999), The Millennium Tower was the highest building in Vienna (202 meters). However, while building it, Stumpf disregarded a number of rules. Initially, the authorities allowed the tower to be only 140 meters high; however, they had to agree to the final version of the project once it was over. Moreover, Stumpf wrested huge price reductions from the construction companies with the promise not to make any deductions due to possible construction defects at the final inspection.

By 2006, his construction and real estate group had offices in London and Budapest.

Controversies In the case of the Sulzer AG acquisition by Stumpf and Pecik, it later emerged that the transaction had been carried out in violation of the Swiss Stock Exchange Act. In 2009, the FINMA filed a criminal complaint with the Swiss Federal Department of Finance against Stumpf, Pecik, and Vekselberg alleging that they had failed to comply with reporting requirements when acquiring shares in the engineering company Sulzer. The case was dropped in October 2010 in exchange for a compensation payment of ten million Swiss francs.

In January 2010, Stumpf, Pecik and Vekselberg were fined 40 million Swiss francs each by the Swiss Federal Department of Finance for allegedly failing to report again, when Victory sold Oerlikon shares to Vekselberg. When the Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Alexei Kudrin, subsequently complained about this ruling and that these political entanglements would strain relations with Russia, the case was transferred to the Federal Criminal Court. Stumpf, Vekselberg and Pecik were subsequently acquitted by the Federal Criminal Court on 23 September 2010 and the fines were canceled. After analyzing the reasons for the verdict in detail, the Federal Department of Finance decided not to appeal the verdict to the Federal Supreme Court.

Personal life Stumpf and his partner Patricia Schalko have two sons. In 2007, he and Schalko built a luxury villa in the style of an Italian palazzo in the upmarket Viennese district of Döbling for around EUR 15 million. The couple separated after 18 years.

Stumpf was ranked third in the ranking of the 100 richest Austrians by Trend magazine in 2023.