Investors misled? – The final trick of the great dazzler

In the summer of 2023, all hell has already broken loose in René Benko’s group of companies. The European Central Bank (ECB) is investigating the banks that provided credit to the Signa Group. It burns. In financial terms. Money is missing from every nook and cranny of the opaque network.

Camouflage and deception
The financial juggler urgently needs fresh capital to restore the liquidity of his Signa Holding, which has already been squeezed out like a tube of toothpaste. And what does René Benko do? He claims to lead by example and provide the parent company of the Signa Group with fresh money from his family foundation. In the hope that the irritated and emotional co-investors around the German Fressnapf founder Torsten Toeller or the Swiss chocolate baron Ernst Tanner will join again. To “create new liquidity reserves” and to regain “access to attractive financing options,” as stated in an internal memo available to “Krone” and “News.” A capital increase by all Signa Holding shareholders is intended to prevent the collapse of the already menacingly swinging house of cards at the last minute.

Some co-owners of Benko will be persuaded one last time in July 2023 to inject even more money into the collapsing Signa Holding. A total of 350 million euros is planned. Ten percent of this amount, 35 million, Benko promises, will flow from his family foundation into fresh capital. The problem: the foundation no longer has the liquidity to raise this amount in the summer of 2023.

What must we do? What follows is the oldest magic trick that cash-strapped financial jugglers have used since the invention of money: the hole-to-hole trick. Joint investigation by “Krone” and “News” followed the trail of the money. An almost breathtaking circular transfer came to light, where a loan from a Signa subsidiary was said to have been converted into new equity for the Signa parent virtually overnight.

35 million euros will flow out
A subsidiary of Signa Holding will be deprived of the urgently needed amount of 35 million euros at the end of June 2023. Reason for transfer: A loan for another Benko company. The 35 million euros will be transferred through various accounts and companies: First to a subsidiary of Benko’s private foundation Laura. From there – also as an alleged loan – to the private foundation of the Benko family, which holds ten percent of the shares in Signa Holding. With the capital increase of 350 million euros that Benko once again begged from its investors, the Benko Family Private Foundation must set a good example and pay out its promised share: exactly that 35 million euros.

The foundation will repay the 35 million
According to available confidential documents, the Benko Family Private Foundation had only a few hundred thousand euros in cash in its accounts at the end of 2022. That is why she urgently needed the loan of 35 million to fulfill Benko’s promise to provide Signa Holding with 35 million in capital. When Benko is founded, the money that originally came from the Signa Group is labeled ‘fresh equity’ and is made available to Signa Holding as the group’s top company. In other words, the parent company whose subsidiary had previously been deprived of this loan through various loan agreements in a circular transfer through Benko’s non-transparent business network.

This sleight of hand in his shady business empire was probably René Benko’s last-ditch attempt to make it clear to potential investors and capital providers that he still enjoyed the confidence of his existing investors. In fact, he made his Signa Holding partners bleed one last time with this capital increase of 350 million.

The Benko confidential counselors involved
By the way, the official loan agreements for this very dubious money carousel were signed only weeks after the district transfer, namely on August 16 and 17, 2023. They were signed by Benko’s closest confidantes: the holding company’s directors, Christoph Stadlhuber and Marcus “Signaturaugust” Mühlberger. Right in the middle: Signa’s financial director Manuel Pirolt, who conveniently also sits on one of the foundations. Like Mühlberger in the other, next to Benko’s old tax advisor from the TPA, Karin Fuhrmann. According to research by ‘Krone’ and ‘Nieuws’, René Benko was involved in the transactions.

Although some of the Signa investors, unlike Benko’s foundation, actually raised new millions in July 2023, Signa Holding could no longer be saved. The holes were already too big and could no longer be filled: a few months after Benko’s publicly celebrated capital increase of 350 million euros, Signa’s first bankruptcy marked the beginning of the great magician and swindler’s disillusionment.