After the Benko raids at the end of June, investigators apparently have no doubts: the financial juggler was de facto director of his Signa Group, which was deliberately built up in a non-transparent way, although he had not held an official executive position since 2013.
This is also evident from the existing decisions regarding the searches of René Benko and his most important managers, in which the real estate speculator is repeatedly described as the ‘de facto ruler’.
“No decision without consultation with Benko”
For example, the investigators point to the testimony of a senior bank employee who, under an obligation to tell the truth, “explicitly made it clear to him that during the negotiations it was always clear to him that René Benko had made the final decision.” The witness also had the impression that Signa’s long-time financial director Manuel Pirolt “did not make a decision without consulting René Benko.” This is also made clear in an email about the asset transfers surrounding villas on Lake Garda, in which Pirolt “asked Benko how to proceed.”
“Do not act so stupid”
The relationship was close and the tone was sometimes rough. “Don’t be stupid,” consultant Benko once wrote to his well-paid number man Pirolt in connection with a kick-off meeting. Another time he reminded Signa’s CFO about the “2022 consultant fees”: “You can take care of your most important consultant and pay the bills,” Benko wrote. Pirolt immediately reported back: “We are already in the payment process.”
As one of the few insiders, Pirolt apparently had a broad overview of the Signa construct. Until a recent, very idiosyncratic PR offensive, he was Benko’s shadow man, who may also have known the dark corners of the bankrupt conglomerate. Until the end of June, Pirolt was on the board of important group companies. And on the board of the Laura Private Foundation, where assets were probably moved.
A “shadow account” called “beer mats”
Be that as it may, Benko was constantly kept informed by Pirolt about the economic situation of the Signa Group: it is clear that no cash flow is allowed to flow past the financial juggler. The ‘cash flow calculation’ was often of particular importance to the founder of Signa in the early morning hours. Benko and Pirolt have had their own system together in recent years. A kind of ‘shadow calculation’, as research by ‘Krone’ and ‘News’ now shows. They actually called it: “Biermatten.”
What you can see: a simple structured overview of the incoming and outgoing payments of the most important group companies. Regularly written there in bold green letters was ‘WORST CASE’, i.e. the worst case scenario.
As is known, this worst case took place on August 17, 2023. A fund from Korea canceled an urgently needed financial injection of 400 million euros for Benko. Whereupon Benko Pirolt wrote a word with four capital letters: “FUCK”.
Then began the biggest bankruptcy of the Second Republic. There was a domino of bankruptcy. But also a large number of statements of fact that led to investigations by the Public Prosecutor for Economic Affairs and Corruption.
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.
