Austrian media were abuzz with speculation over Klima's next move in the six-year long privatisation after he indicated on Sunday an eleventh-hour offer by an Austro-Italian-German consortium around insurer EA-Generali for the government's 70 percent voting stake in the bank was too vague.
The group, headed by EA-Generali and including Germany's Commerzbank and Banca Commerciale Italiana, on Friday said it had made an offer for the government's stake in Creditanstalt just hours before a midnight deadline expired.
Italian-controlled EA-Generali on Friday said its proposal was an "updated version" of a bid the group originally made last October, when it offered to pay nine billion schillings ($858 million) for about two thirds of the government's Creditanstalt stake and sell the remaining shares in a secondary offering.
No details of the new offer were made public, and it was not immediately clear whether the consortium bid was for all or just parts of the government's stake. Klima, in charge of the sale, on Sunday said he wanted to see more information on how many of the government's 19.9 million ordinary Creditanstalt shares each of the consortium members proposed to acquire.
A spokesman for Klima on Monday said the minister and his advisors, investment bank JP Morgan, were still scrutinising the consortium's offer. Klima is expected to report his findings at the weekly cabinet meeting on Tuesday.