The next big impact in the case surrounding Austria’s most famous bankrupt: René Benko’s curators are now taking legal action against his mother Ingeborg, who founded several foundations together with the failed real estate speculator.
According to information from “Krone” and “News”, the venue for the legal dispute will likely be the Innsbruck Regional Court. Rumors were already circulating in legal circles there on Tuesday morning that a very explosive order had been received. Accordingly, Benko’s trustee is tightening the pace against the founder of the financially ailing conglomerate Signa Group, who also filed for personal bankruptcy as an entrepreneur in early March 2024.
The mother as co-founder
However, the administrators have a specific suspicion that the 47-year-old Tyrolean, who has officially been living on 3,700 euros per month since the bankruptcy was declared, could have transferred assets to his foundations in Austria and Liechtenstein. At both the Laura Private Foundation in Innsbruck and the Ingbe Foundation in Vaduz, Benko’s 74-year-old mother Ingeborg acts as co-founder and – unlike her son – as beneficiary. Ingeborg Benko, a retired kindergarten teacher, is apparently seen as a ‘straw mother’ for her son René.
According to reports, the lawsuit, which should also be accompanied by a request for a preliminary injunction, is about Ingeborg Benko being legally prohibited from exercising her rights as a founder any longer. The goal of Benko’s trustee will likely be to gain access to the donated assets for his many creditors. The foundations must therefore be legally cracked. Recently – as reported by ‘Krone’ and ‘News’ – idiosyncratic wealth shifts around the time of the outbreak of Signa’s insolvency wave caused a stir.
Shifts of villas on Lake Garda
In August 2023 – a few weeks before the first crash – six villas on Lake Garda were said to have been transferred from Signa Holding to the sphere of the Ingbe Foundation in Liechtenstein in exchange for a now worthless Signa Prime share package. According to confidential annual accounts, 45 million euros worth of physical gold was still present at Ingbe at the end of 2022. There were also three million Swiss francs and two million US dollars in bundles of cash in various safes.
At the Laura Private Foundation, some of Benko’s co-investors, who have lost hundreds of millions, suspect a kind of “signa within the signa”. The real estate speculator, it is suspected, could have built a shadow empire with properties in Germany and Austria under the roof of this foundation, together with his closest confidantes. It can now be assumed that the Public Prosecution Service for Economic Affairs and Corruption is also interested in several asset transfers shortly before the big Signa explosion. The presumption of innocence applies to René Benko and possible accomplices.
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.
