BAWAG P.S.K. () is the fourth largest bank in Austria. It was formed on October 1, 2005 by the merger of the separate banks P.S.K. and BAWAG. , the bank serviced more than 2.5 million customers all over Austria. It serves Austrian retail, small business and corporate customers across the country, offering savings, payment, lending, leasing, investment, building society and insurance products and services. Two-thirds of the customer loans derive from Austria. The international activities focus on retail, corporate, commercial real estate and portfolio lending in Western developed countries. History BAWAG was founded in 1922 by former Austrian Chancellor Karl Renner to extend favourable terms of credit to ordinary people, as the 'Austrian Worker's Bank'. The bank was forced to close in 1934, but resumed its operations post World War II in 1947. In 1963, it took the name of Bank für Arbeit und Wirtschaft AG, BAWAG, or, in English, 'Bank for Labour and Business Corporation'. Until 2006, the bank's majority shareholder was the ÖGB, the Austrian Trade Union Federation. P.S.K. was founded in 1883 as Austrian Postal Savings Bank by Georg Coch offering the idea of saving to broad sections of the population, to ensure the security of the deposits by investing in government bonds only as well as to provide funding for the state. After acquiring P.S.K. by BAWAG in 2000, both banks merged to form BAWAG P.S.K. in 2005. In December 2006, Cerberus Capital Management acquired BAWAG P.S.K. for reported €3.2 billion. In October 2017, BAWAG Group AG, the holding company of BAWAG P.S.K., became a listed company on the Vienna Stock Exchange. Largest shareholders are Cerberus Capital Management (35.1%) and GoldenTree Asset Management (25.7%). In 2012, BAWAG P.S.K. began executing a transformational initiative to improve and restructure its operations to improve its financial strength and efficiency. The key pillars of the transformation included re-focusing on core geographic markets and products, driving cost efficiency through disciplined cost management and simplified processes and deleveraging the balance sheet to increase capital and liquidity. As a result BAWAG P.S.K.’s profit before tax increased from €23 million in 2012 to €470 million in 2016, primarily resulting from stronger core revenues and reduced operating expenses. As part of BAWAG P.S.K.’s effort to reduce operating expenses, the bank implemented a new cost management approach, rationalized its business model and simplified its organizational structure. The bank also de-risked the balance sheet, which was achieved