Bankruptcy domino in the Benko empire: After the holding company, Signa Prime and Signa Development also went bankrupt. Shareholders have commissioned experts to investigate several recent deals.
With an over-indebtedness of around five billion euros, Signa Holding’s insolvency as of the end of November 2023 is the largest bankruptcy in the Austrian company’s history. Shortly after Christmas, the domino of bankruptcy in the nested Benko empire of more than a thousand companies worldwide accelerated as expected: Signa Prime and Signa Development, two other key group companies of the financial juggler, fell into bankruptcy.
Signa has applied for a restructuring procedure under its own management for the holding company, the main company and the development company. This means that René Benko’s directors and board members can continue to operate the gear lever, something that long-standing insolvency experts are shaking their heads at. In the case of self-government, the court-appointed restructuring administrator only has a role as a “super-supervisory board”.
Who will bring light into the Signa darkness?
The fact that Christof Stapf, responsible for the bankruptcy of Signa Holding, has commissioned his own forensic team to further investigate the events in the non-transparent parent company is explosive. Research by ‘Krone’ in shareholder circles has now revealed that several co-owners of Signa are consulting ‘with armies of lawyers and accountants’ to finally shed light on Benko’s Signa darkness.
Benko’s investors have also hired forensic experts to investigate certain business transactions within the financially distressed group. Until recently, there were ‘crazy transactions’ within the corporate structure.
What might lawyers, auditors and forensic experts encounter? For example, a deal with Hans Peter Haselsteiner, who owns 15 percent of the holding company through his family foundation.
The hidden percent
In August 2023, Hans Peter Haselsteiner, Signa Holding’s second largest shareholder with 15 percent, will probably have transferred one percent of his shares to the Benko family’s private foundation. Unofficially. This transaction may not appear in the commercial register. The Haselsteiner Foundation is collecting 50 million euros for this one percent, with part of the purchase price going directly from the Benko Family Private Foundation to Signa Holding. Apparently so that the Haselsteiner Foundation as a holding partner meets its obligations with the capital increase.
The question arises whether this secret transaction between René Benko and his most important co-shareholder was related to the capital increase taking place at the time, which had already become public at the end of July: It was said in circles that Signa Holding had secured a cash injection of 400 million euros. A not unimportant afterword for the market: Shareholders such as René Benko and Hans Peter Haselsteiner are said to have “made investments to cushion the tense situation on the real estate market,” according to media reports.
A second transaction took place in 2022. At the time, Benko sold its Signa Financial Services, based in Switzerland, to Signa Prime Selection AG for approximately EUR 300 million. When fellow partners asked the real estate speculator what this deal was about, they received nothing but a satisfactory answer.
As is known, Signa Prime recorded a loss of over one billion euros in the 2022 financial year. Apparently 300 million more or less didn’t matter anymore.
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.
