A bécsi Rothschildok és az 5 %-os magyar papírjáradék (1881 - 1893)
The Viennese Rothschilds and the 5% Hungarian Paper Rente

Summary/Abstract: The essay has two parts. The first sketches the way the Rothschild archives found their way to Moscow. The second sums up the history of the issue, sale, and finally conversion of the 5% Hungarian Paper Rente, a government bond meant explicitly for investors in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, on the basis of the sources found in the archives in Moscow. The Rothschild archives in Vienna — along with other documents — were first seized by the Nazis, kept at the end of the war in Lower Silesia, among the papers of Department VII of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, and then transferred, in the autumn of 1945, to the so called Special Archives of the Soviet NKVD. The contents of the archives, regarded as a prize of war, became public in 1990. The author was able to research the archives of the Rothschilds' Vienna branch in an institution called Centre for Keeping the Historical Documentary Collection, under 3, Vyborgskaja ulitsa. Hungary, having regained its relative autonomy after 1867, first received amortization loans from her creditors, then was able to move in the late seventies on to annuity loans (rentes). The annuity loans, meant to be placed abroad, were usually issued in denominations for gold since foreign investors had more trust in the gold standard. From 1881, Austria and Hungary each issued separately a 5%, so called, Paper Rente, intended for a domestic cirle of investors, good for so called bank value, that is the Austrian Gulden, the non-convertible paper currency of the Monarchy. [...]. Apart from the first time, the government always sold the bonds to an Austrian-German-Hungarian group led by the Viennese Rothschilds, who then went on to sell them, without public subscription, in Central European capital markets. The sales records of the Viennese firm indicate that between 1881 and 1888, a constantly increasing part of the Hungarian loan was placed in Austria. Austrian 5% Paper Rentes were also issued simultaneously, but on account of the more favourable conditions, the investors from west of the Leitha showed more interest in buying the Hungarian rather than the Austrian annuity.[...] After 1888, the returns deteriorating with the rising prices, the conversion of the 5% Rente into a Rente of lower interest became opportune, and it was indeed effected with the issue in April, 1893, of the 4% Crown Rente. According to the case study, the only way the money and capital market of the western half of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was able to absorb an increasing part of the new issues intended for domestic sale was that it allowed an increasing portion of the stock purchased earlier to flow back to the territory of the issuing country. Thus the history of the 5% Paper Rente is not simply that of Austrian capital continually flowing into Hungary, but also the history of the growing rate of the repatriation of Hungarian bonds, up until the new conversion.

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