After the negative headlines surrounding the sale of ailing furniture retailer Kika/Leiner, department store juggler René Benko and his Signa Group are dealing with another setback: Signa Sports United, an online sports retailer listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), reports a loss of 180.5 million euros in the first half of the year.
So EUR 150 million must be allocated – on top of the EUR 130 million pledged by Signa Holding a few months ago – to keep the company afloat.
Stock falling
Particularly explosive is a passage in the current official message from Signa Sports United, which warns investors that the company could even be threatened with closure in the worst case: namely if a credit line of 100 million euros fails to refinance by May 2024 .
In the worst case, investors may be left with little or nothing. In any case, Signa Sports United was severely penalized on June 28 on the New York Stock Exchange, losing 11.25 percent to close at $2.84, which is only a third of its original issue price.
With Kurz in Abu Dhabi
The ‘Standard’ reported in early April that Benko was already traveling with a former chancellor in the United Arab Emirates to find investors for Signa Sports in the fall of 2022: Sebastian Kurz should therefore be ‘in talks between Benko and Mubadala, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, have been involved” – it is clear that these talks have so far not been crowned with success.
On board with Gusenbauer and Raiffeisen
By the way: another former chancellor, namely Alfred Gusenbauer (SPÖ), holds important supervisory positions as chairman of both Signa and Strabag. Strabag founder Hans Peter Haselsteiner is a major investor in Signa.
The Raiffeisen banking group, which according to “Spiegel” lent the Signa group a total of about two billion euros, is considered the most important Signa lender in Austria. Media holding companies such as the Kurier also belong to the Raiffeisen empire.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
