2024-02-03 13:46:01
The billion-dollar bankruptcies in Rene Benko’s former glossy Signa empire do not seem to have left their mark on the alleged real estate tycoon, according to a report in the “Tiroler Tageszeitung”. There is currently no trace of Benko. According to the “Tiroler Tageszeitung” (“TT”, Saturday), close confidants, who are not named, report that he is a “broken man”. Accordingly, Benko lost his grip on the ground following initially having extreme success.
The unnamed employee tells “TT” that the Chrysler Building in New York City was a “megalomaniacal purchase”. And further: “He (Benko, note) suddenly believed that he knew everything regarding everything, that he might turn anything into gold.”
After entering the retail sector and later also the media sector (“Kronen Zeitung”, “Kurier”), he went from being a man with a supposed golden touch who lived an ultra-luxurious lifestyle at Signa’s expense to becoming a record bankrupt: Vom Plane to the stately and luxurious property in Sirmione including a helipad, from the chalets in Lech to the villa in Igls, staff included.
Benko was probably the de facto managing director until the end, even if he tried to hide it from the outside world. Benko “had the reins in his hand” and instructed his employees and his managing directors. “In my opinion, he shouldn’t shy away from that,” said Signa investor Hans Peter Haselsteiner recently. Possible liability issues stand or fall for Benko personally if he is actually a managing director. As reported, the Financial Procuratorate wants to examine this.
Benko shies away from the public eye. According to “TT”, it is unclear where exactly he is, whether in Innsbruck or elsewhere. But he might also be found in Vienna from time to time, sometimes having breakfast at “his” Park Hyatt in “his” Golden Quarter in the city center.
Politicians from ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz down used to enjoy being photographed with him. During his time as chancellor, Kurz even took Benko to the Arab world, for example to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2019, to hold discussions with investors. The then Chancellor Kurz and the then Justice Minister Josef Moser (both ÖVP) are said to have been involved in the Kika/Leiner purchase of Signa at the end of 2017, including the Leiner building on Mariahilfer Straße, which initially stands as a shell as a luxury department store There is ice.
The bankruptcies in the Benkos conglomerate result in liabilities in the double-digit billion range. It is by far the largest bankruptcy in Austrian economic history.
According to Benko’s companions, Dieter Berninghaus was an important advisor to Benko. He knew how to motivate Benko, writes the “TT”. Berninghaus has been advising the Signa Group for several years, a spokesman for the “independent M&A manager” told APA on Saturday. He never carried out any operational activity as a managing director or on a supervisory board of Signa companies.
In 2022, the former Migros and Rewe manager Berninghaus said in an interview with the Swiss business magazine “Bilanz” that he was currently in the process of building Europe’s largest luxury department store group, writes “TT”. “Once Benko and Beringhaus agreed on a strategy, a decision was made, then the railway ran over it. You might no longer counteract it from the outside,” says a Signa employee, according to a newspaper report, regarding better days. The 58-year-old Berninghaus, a German with a Swiss passport, lives in Switzerland and, according to the spokesman on Saturday, always worked from there. Beringhaus was only temporarily in the USA and returned once more.
A second name that appears in the analysis of the Signa bankruptcy is that of Timo Herzberg. Just before Christmas, Herzberg was relieved of his role as CEO of Signa Prime and Signa Selection with “immediate effect”. “The suspicion was clear and left the supervisory boards no other choice,” said Alfred Gusenbauer, ex-SPÖ chancellor and chairman of the supervisory boards of the two companies, at the time. What exactly disrupted the relationship of trust remains unclear. It is suspected that Herzberg ensured that bonus payments amounting to millions were possibly collected using unfair methods.
Signa likes to argue that the ECB is practically to blame for its collapse. This is due to a special audit of bank loans to Signa and the rapid interest rate increases. However, the ECB’s increases only followed previous developments in the USA.
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