Christoph Stadlhuber, director and governor of Signa Holding in Vienna for twelve years, has a new job: he came on board the Sonnenweiher project in Grafenwörth, which became known throughout Austria as “Mini-Dubai”.
Already in 2021, the “Krone” first reported on the real estate speculation of the then mayor of Grafenwörth and chairman of the municipal association Alfred Riedl. In 2023, the project outside the borders of Lower Austria made headlines as “Mini-Dubai” or “Dubai in the Weinviertel”: An artificial project is being built around the so-called Sonnenweiher, which was sold to a property developer in 2019 and is currently being co-developed by Niederösterreichische Versicherung Folien-See 207 houses and semi-detached houses. On a greenfield site, despite the climate crisis. Riedl has also made a lot of money thanks to realignments and he has lost his role in the community association.
Farewell without regrets
Christoph Stadlhuber, who led the now bankrupt Signa Holding for twelve years, is now also involved in this controversial project. Only at the beginning of June did René Benko’s former Viennese governor say goodbye to the bankrupt company and become self-employed in a quirky social media posting with a lot of self-praise – without even mentioning the financial juggler and Signa inventor himself a single word. Just a few hours later, the 57-year-old was working on the Sonnenweiher project. This is evident from documents available at “Krone” and “News”.
In concrete terms, Stadlhuber works for NV IT und Projektentwicklung GmbH, a subsidiary of Niederösterreichische Versicherung. As a consultant, he provides project budgets, sales documents, marketing and strategy. According to a fee statement, NV IT und Projektentwicklung GmbH charged 19,800 euros for this in June.
Broad network
As the former head of the state-owned Federal Real Estate Company (BIG), Stadlhuber has a broad network that extends into politics, and René Benko also managed to make use of this. Together with a so-called Signa yacht coordinator, the holding manager managed the invitation lists for the large Signa yachts in Burgenland and Styria.
Two years ago, a board member of Niederösterreichische Versicherung was on one of these invitation lists. People were invited to the Stüblergut district in the Styrian forests for a “stand hunt for red deer (3-point deer)”.
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.
