To guarantee an orderly and, above all, transparent insolvency procedure, the credit protectors advocate the establishment of a Signa creditors committee.
This should be set by the responsible judge. It would consist of three to seven members, support and supervise the trustee and generally provide greater transparency, according to a report by the Alpine Creditors Association (AKV) and the 1870 Credit Protection Association (KSV). “With a creditors’ committee, we can ask the trustee the questions that are already burning under our nails,” Karl-Heinz Götze, head of insolvency at KSV1870, said in the Ö1 “Morgenjournal” on Tuesday.
Many open questions
“We currently do not know at all how the obligations are positioned. We do not know what the restructuring plan will look like. We don’t know what the next steps should be. “We don’t know what the financing will look like,” says Götze, listing the uncertainties.
Assets suddenly plummeted
But there are major differences not only in debts, but also in assets, i.e. share ownership, says Cornelia Wesenauer of the AKV. On the 2022 balance sheet, the assets were valued at approximately five billion euros; When the bankruptcy was declared (as of September 30, 2023), they were only valued at approximately two and a half billion euros according to their book value. The liquidation value of the assets – this is the value that would be redeemed in the event of a forced sale – would only be around 300 million euros. “That’s five percent of what it would have been worth nine months ago,” Wesenauer said.
It is also unclear what will happen to Signa Holding’s two major subsidiaries, Signa Prime Selection AG and Signa Development AG. According to their respective 2022 annual reports, both companies have debts totaling 14 billion euros.
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.
