The Signa Group of real estate juggler Rene Benko is deep in the red: in the middle of the week it was announced that parent company Signa Holding had suffered a loss of around 505 million euros in the 2022 financial year. A few weeks earlier, Signa Prime Selection AG, which mainly has real estate in better urban locations, had to admit a loss of more than a billion euros on its balance sheet for 2022. According to the consolidated financial statements available on krone.at, pre-tax profits “deteriorated” to minus 1.212 billion euros.
What is even more remarkable is the fact that Benkos Signa Prime has awarded its four board members a real windfall despite this horror record. The appendix to the 2022 annual accounts states that the total remuneration of the board of directors increased to 20.264 million euros in the reporting period; By comparison, in the 2021 financial year, board members were awarded only 2.680 million euros.
This 20.264 million euros for four managers in the 2022 financial year is composed as follows: fixed compensation of 1.128 million euros, variable compensation of 6.486 million euros and “partial bonuses for ongoing projects” of 12.649 million euros. According to the annual accounts, these remarkable “partial bonuses for ongoing projects” did not exist last year.
In addition to Signa Holding, colorful investors such as Klaus Michael Kühne, the Peugeot brothers and Roland Berger are also involved in Signa Prime Selection AG. Former Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer is chairman of the supervisory board. According to the minutes of the general meeting, the ten-member supervisory body has received compensation totaling up to 994,000 euros for the 2022 financial year.
“I am René-Benko-Strudel”
Benko’s main investors in Signa Holding include former Strabag boss Hans Peter Haselsteiner and Lindt & Sprüngli boss Ernst Tanner. The Swiss business medium ‘Inside Paradeplatz’ is currently speculating that Tanner is ‘in the Rene Benko vortex’. It literally says: “The impending bankruptcy of the Austrian ‘wunderkind’ Rene Benko hits one of the most successful business leaders in the Swiss Confederation” – the “executive” president of Lindt & Sprüngli urgently needs “cash, liquidity” and sells participation certificates in the well-known chocolate manufacturer on a larger scale. When asked, Tanner would not reveal why. But “Inside Paradeplatz” says: A “connection with Benko and his struggle for survival” is “clear”.
Should Haselsteiner, Tanner and Co. inject more money again?
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.
