René Benko and his Signa Group suffered the largest bankruptcy in post-war Austrian history. At the private foundation Laura, where trustees suspect that assets have been moved, a strange replacement recently sat on the board.
René Benko, 47, portrayed himself for years as a high-flyer. Not only in the real estate and retail sectors. Even on business trips, the financial juggler always left with a private jet. Often on board in the cockpit: Christof Jauschnegg, 48, who served as pilot for the founder of Signa and his Signa Holding.
Progress instead of exit
In the meantime, Austria’s most famous bankrupt Benko has made a real economic emergency landing: the bankruptcy of Signa represents the largest bankruptcy in Austria’s post-war history. Not only many of his companies, but also he himself had to go to the bankruptcy court. But Benko’s pilot Christof Jauschnegg has not left, but has been promoted: since the end of June, he is the new board member of the Laura Private Foundation, in which the curator and investigators of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) suspect Benko’s assets.
A pilot as a board member of the foundation. Such a creative trick is rare even in the Austrian economy. A place in the cockpit of the Benko Foundation, which had fallen into enormous turbulence, had become necessary because Benko’s trusted lawyer Bernhard Vetter von der Lilie had already announced his departure from the foundation’s board at the end of March. Benko’s financial director, Manuel Pirolt, was actually supposed to step down at the end of June, but his name can still be found in the Wirtschafts-Compass. The board of the Laura Private Foundation, named after Benko’s eldest daughter, is the South Tyrolean tax consultant and accountant Heinz Peter Hager, who is considered the last governor of the real estate speculator.
Was René Benko an ‘economic founder’?
Benko himself officially wants nothing more to do with the foundation, although he was on the advisory board until the end of January 2024. The beneficiary is Benko’s mother Ingeborg, who her son’s curators suspect is a “straw mother”. In short: the mother, a retired nursery teacher, ‘only pretended’ that Benko was in fact the ‘economic donor’.
In the personal bankruptcy proceedings of the former Signa ruler, creditors have filed claims worth some two billion euros. Benko’s trustees from law firm CHG recently obtained summary proceedings from the court against Ingeborg Benko, in which she was no longer allowed to make changes to the foundation declarations and the two foundation statutes.
However, Ingeborg Benko signed the ‘declaration of consent’, according to which her son’s pilot would be hoisted to the pulpit of the Laura Foundation. On June 28, 2024. She ‘even waived compliance with any deadlines’.
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.
