Sanctions – Benko: How laws are broken at Signa

For example, it says: “The values ​​of integrity, sense of responsibility, honesty, compliance and transparency are the benchmark for Signa’s actions. They form the basis of the long-term success of the company and an indispensable compass in dealing with each other.” strict anti-corruption” and “compliance with applicable legal requirements”.

Signed: René Benko, Chairman of the Advisory Board of Signa Holding GmbH, as well as Christoph Stadlhuber and Marcus Mühlberger, Official Directors of Signa Holding GmbH.

Violation of the Companies Code
‘Transparency’ and ‘compliance with the applicable legal provisions’ are values ​​that Signa embodies like a monstrance on the outside, but which obviously do not come to life in all areas on the inside. How else can it be explained that Signa Holding GmbH, headquartered in Innsbruck, in which Stadlhuber and Mühlberger act as administrators, has not filed any balance sheets with the Commercial Register Court since October 2019?

A look at the “Wirtschaftskompass” (as of September 6, 2023) shows this – and reveals a clear violation of the Austrian Commercial Code, which requires companies to send their annual accounts to the commercial register court no later than nine months after the balance sheet. page date and thus make them public. Otherwise you will be penalized. From the court. By enforcement title. Without prior procedure.

Thousands of euros in fines per year
According to the law, each director – depending on the size of the company – must pay 700 to 3600 euros every two months if this regulation is violated. According to information from the Innsbruck regional court, action must also be taken against the company itself if the bodies fail to fulfill their obligations. That means: Signa Holding GmbH, in which the Haselsteiner Private Foundation (15 percent), Fressnapf founder Torsten Toeller (4.46 percent) and Lindt & Sprüngli boss Ernst Tanner (3 percent) also hold shares in addition to department store juggler Benko, would be as long as should be prosecuted until the balance sheets appear in the public companies register.

But that also means: laws are broken at Signa, directors or companies apparently pay thousands of euros in fines per year if they do not create balance sheet transparency.

Not a full group photo
Just to clarify, the obligation to publish financial statements is relevant to the extent that balance sheets contain key figures of companies (balance sheet profit, loss, assets, liabilities), which can give the public, business partners or lenders a sense of how the company is doing on its financial health from the company. In the case of Signa Holding, the financial statements are even more important when a nested group of companies with hundreds of companies worldwide does not create a consolidated balance sheet, ie a complete group view.

At the beginning of July, the ‘Standard’ reported on an unusual, unusual correction in the Signa Group’s balance sheets, which affected the year 2020 and was worth millions. At the end of August, Bloomberg wanted to know that the European Central Bank (ECB) had urged certain banks with existing loans to the Signa Group to partially write off these loans or to make further provisions for potential losses.

Taxpayers also pay
Benkos Signa recently had to accept major reputational losses as a result of the forays into retail. In Germany Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof went bankrupt for the second time in three years, in Austria Kika/Leiner – a few days after the sale by Signa – initiated restructuring proceedings. In both cases, the bankruptcies come at the expense of taxpayers, who have to pay hundreds of millions of euros.

Signa’s retail division is bundled into Vienna-based Signa Retail GmbH: this includes exciting holding companies such as Karstadt Warenhaus GmbH, Signa International Sports Holding or The KaDeWe Group Holding, each based in Germany. Unfortunately, it is not possible to find out how the balance sheets of Signa Retail are doing. In June 2017, the last annual accounts were submitted to the court in the trade register.

Incidentally: Ex-SPÖ Chancellor Alfred As president, Gusenbauer holds key supervisory roles at both Signa and Strabag. Strabag founder Hans Peter Haselsteiner is a major Signa investor.

The Raiffeisen banking group, which according to Spiegel de Signa group would have borrowed a total of about two billion euros at peak times, is considered the most important Signa lender in Austria. Media companies such as the “Kurier” also belong to the Raiffeisen empire.