High Jinks for High Performers: German Bank Probes Staff Over Rio Sex Claims

German mortgage bank Wüstenrot took 50 high-performing sales staff to Rio last year as a reward for their good work, but is now being embarrassed by reports that some of them had sex with prostitutes on the trip. A tour bus apparently took employees directly to a shady nightclub, while one director was allegedly caught on the beach with a prostitute.

German bank staff partied hard in Rio de Janeiro last year.

Foto: dapd

Germany's oldest building society, Wüstenrot, has been left red-faced by revelations that several of its staff visited a brothel during an expenses-paid trip to the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro to reward them for their services.

The company said in a statement it was checking whether individual staff members broke the company's code of conduct on the six-day trip from April 27 to May 2 last year, which was organized "to promote and reward the especially excellent performance of our sales staff."

According to a report in business daily Handelsblatt on Tuesday, the company flew 50 employees to Rio. The firm's auditors later found out that between 14 and 20 of them had visited the nightclub "Barbarella," an establishment where people go to meet prostitutes. At least three employees, including senior ones, had gone to rooms with prostitutes, the newspaper reported.

"There was some heavy partying in the hotel corridors," Handelsblatt quoted one trip participant as saying. "The Brazilian police seized one of our directors at night on the beach in the company of a prostitute."

Sources close to the company said Wüstenrot had organized a bus tour through Rio after which up to two dozen staff members had decided of their own accord to hit the nightclub and make contact with prostitutes. Some 40 people who were on the trip have given statements.

The company said the nocturnal activities of some of its staff members were their own private activities. "We don't support, organize or finance any activities that breach our code of contact," Wüstenrot said in a statement on Monday. "But we are taking the matter very seriously. That is why we are currently checking intensively whether individual participants breached our codes of conduct or legal rules." It said it would take disciplinary measures against staff if any wrongdoing was found.

In May, German insurance firm Ergo made headlines when it emerged that it had hosted a sex party  for high-performing staff members in a bathhouse in Budapest, Hungary, in 2007.

'Ferried to a Brothel'

According to Handelsblatt, the female tour guide had recommended the nightclub to Wüstenrot staff. "The bus doors opened and around half the group got out, including departmental managers and directors," the newspaper quoted a member of the group as saying. "I thought: That's unbelievable that Wüstenrot is ferrying us to a brothel here."

According to Wüstenrot, the official itinerary consisted of tourist destinations such as Sugarloaf mountain and the Maracana football stadium. The company said it expected its staff to stick to company codes of conduct but that it it "was neither desirable nor possible to monitor the private lives of employees."

In order to prevent a recurrence, Wüstenrot has scrapped corporate visits to exotic destinations. "As a first measure, it was decided that from 2012 only destinations in Germany will be used for incentive trips," the company said.

Wüstenrot is Germany's second-largest building society with 3 million customers and contracts totalling €100 billion.

Bild newspaper printed what it said was a photo of a Wüstenrot employee standing on a beach, his face pixelated, surrounded by three attractive young Brazilian women in bikinis.

"Who knows: Perhaps some of the prostitutes now have a Wüstenrot mortgage savings contract," the newspaper quipped.

cro -- with wire reports