Benko turbulence – Alfred Gusenbauer: The servant of two masters

There was a time when Alfred Gusenbauer spoke well and cheerfully about René Benko. For example, in July 2022, when he explained to the ORF business magazine “Eco” that the many investors in the real estate juggler “always made good money”. Or a year earlier, when he revealed in the business magazine ‘trend’ that real estate development was ‘not rocket science’.

In the turbulent year 2023, on the other hand, no publicly effective statements have been made by the former chancellor about his friend Benko: this may be due to the department store debacle around Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (GKK), in which creditors had to write off a billion euros on March 27, but could also be to do with general tension. This is due to the situation in the real estate sector, which is said to have recently made well-known banks and their regulators extra alert.

Interesting dual role
In any case, the role of Gusenbauer in interaction with Signa founder Benko on the one hand and Strabag mastermind Hans Peter Haselsteiner on the other seems interesting. Because the 63-year-old former short-term chancellor is currently on an ambitious balancing act:

• Gusenbauer serves on the Signa Advisory Board for René Benko and is Chairman of the Supervisory Boards of Signa Prime Selection AG and Signa Development AG; In addition, through his investment company, he has a 0.15 percent stake in Signa Development and a two percent stake in a company called Signa KidINVEST.

• For Hans Peter Haselsteiner, Gusenbauer is not only on the board of two private foundations, he has also headed the supervisory board of Strabag, one of the 20 largest construction groups in the world, since 2010. The Haselsteiner Family Private Foundation now owns a 15 percent stake in Signa Holding, which ranks above all other companies in the Signa cosmos.

Legally, this constellation is legitimate. From an ethical and moral perspective, the question arises as to which side Gusenbauer is on: on that of René Benko, who, following GKK’s second insolvency in less than three years, is now described as a “controversial investor” in Germany; or that of Hans Peter Haselsteiner, who – to quote Gusenbauer – likes to “earn well” and therefore expects a reasonable return on his multimillion-dollar investment in the Signa Group.

Good offers
It is clear that Alfred Gusenbauer is doing well: according to research by krone.at, the supervisory board of Signa Development Selection AG approved compensation totaling “up to 500,500 euros” in the most recently published fiscal year 2020. In Prime Selection AG “A total of no less than 837,500” euros was released. The balance sheet profit of Gusenbauer Projektentwicklung- und Beteiligung GmbH is also remarkable: in the 2021 financial year it amounted to 19.7 million euros, compared to 17.7 million in the previous year.