The brief incarceration of Julius Meinl this month, which saw him released on record bail of €100m ($132m), has turned the spotlight not just on one of Austria’s best-known bankers and society figures but also on all the country’s quoted real estate funds.

Austria’s property market managed to escape the implosion witnessed in some other European countries, including Ireland, Spain and the UK, as the credit crunch bit. However, Austrian investors have been hard hit by the exposure of several quoted domestic property groups to tumbling real estate values in central and eastern Europe.