Bankruptcy department store – Benko: hangover instead of yacht party in Cannes

The MIPIM (residential, commercial real estate and business establishment fair) was once the high point of an industry that, loosely based on the Olympic motto – “faster, higher, stronger” – hardly seemed to set boundaries. During the day, spectacular projects and fantastic returns were discussed at the world’s largest real estate fair, and at night parties were held on the yachts near Cannes as if there were no tomorrow.

Turnaround by interest turnaround
But with the reversal in interest rates came a turning point. One of the reasons why disillusionment spread across the Cote d’Azur in mid-March 2023. The bare stock market facts according to industry reports:

• 23,000 participants from about 90 countries mean a decrease of about twelve percent compared to the last crisis-free year before Corona.
• Looking back at 2019, the number of exhibitors at MIPIM has fallen by 40 percent to 2400 in 2023.

In the week before Cannes, the 62-meter yacht of an Austrian real estate juggler will probably also have had a hangover: René Benko and his Signa Group are currently dealing with the second bankruptcy of the Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (GKK) department store chain within three years, according to media reports to close 50 of the approximately 130 branches.

According to the German “Immobilienzeitung”, the Bremen Galeria Karstadt branch is also threatened with closure, which is why Benko would have spoken personally with landlord Kurt Zech. In France. hunt after hunt.

The newspaper published a snapshot of Benko sitting on his RoMa behind thick, dark sunglasses.

“Ice cold calculation” of an “Osigarchen”?
In any case, the sea is getting more and more stormy for Benko: the “Focus” recently reported on the department store juggler in connection with the GKK debacle of an “ice-cold calculation”. In the article he is referred to as “Ösigarch”: “Benko pocketed the land, but bankrupted the operators.”