Signa, the Austrian real estate empire, is entering a legal restructuring.
With a rumble at the Chrysler Building. For a huge businessman who liked to brag about the vastness of his assets, his fall was profound. Born in 1977 to a middle-class family in Innsbruck, Tyrol, René Benko starts repairing attics as a teenager. He finds his calling. He drops out of school to start his own company and quickly builds a strong network. Managing hundreds of companies over the years he''is accumulating €27 billion worth of real estate and diversifying into trading and media. This was reflected by the slogan of the 2000s: 'It's never been so boring to become rich,' the company wrote on its website, offering investors mysterious enrichment. However, the situation has changed: interest rates have risen significantly, and successive crises (pandemic, war in Ukraine) have driven up the cost of building materials. Already several subsidiaries of the group have filed for bankruptcy and epathetic projects have been put on hold, including in Germany, where Signa operates.
Paying for good fortune. - As for its department store chains, such as Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, Germany's largest chain, they have suffered from''economic situation and customer churn. The group recently divested the historic British brand Selfridges, which was taken over by Thai group Central Group. Investment in retail has not been as successful as expected amid strong economic pressures, Signa admitted. It also cited unmitigated development in the real estate sector.
Australia's richest man, René Benko, loved monderness, and his close ties to political leaders of the past have caused him problems. In 2020, he appeared before a parliamentary committee investigating his ties to senior conservatives and the far right as part of a huge corruption scandal. No action was brought against him. In another case, he was''sentenced in 2012 to a year's suspended sentence for bribing former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in a tax fraud case. The latest setbacks cost him half of his fortune, which has fallen from $6 billion to $2.8 billion (2.5 billion euros) according to the latest figures from US magazine Forbes. © 2023 AFP
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