2024-03-13 22:27:13
After the insolvency of his company network, the founder of the Signa Group René Benko is targeted by the public prosecutor’s office. It’s probably hundreds of millions of euros.
The Munich I public prosecutor’s office is investigating suspected money laundering at the insolvent Signa Group. A spokeswoman for the investigative authority did not name specific suspects on Wednesday at the request of the German Press Agency. However, she pointed out that there is no corporate criminal law in Germany, meaning that investigations cannot be carried out against companies, but only against individual people. “Bild am Sonntag” had previously reported. Accordingly, René Benko, founder of the Signa Group, is said to have defrauded banks of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The money, which was originally intended for real estate investments in Munich, then flowed abroad via a company network. The first indications of the events are said to have come from the German Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a sub-authority of the Federal Ministry of Finance. According to the report, Benko’s lawyers did not want to comment on the allegations for the time being.
The Munich investigations have not yet progressed very far. However, the announcement revealed that other public prosecutor’s offices in Germany are also involved in the case. At the moment it is apparently being clarified where the leadership should lie. “The exact local responsibilities and thus the press sovereignty within Germany still need to be clarified, which is why we have to be cautious about providing information at the moment,” explained the spokeswoman for the Munich public prosecutor’s office.
Benko filed for bankruptcy
The founder of the Signa Group only filed for bankruptcy on Thursday last week. Benko had filed his own application to open insolvency proceedings “as an entrepreneur,” the Austrian news agency APA quoted a spokeswoman for the Innsbruck regional court as saying on Thursday. Here you can read more about it.
Last year, the US magazine Forbes valued Benko’s wealth at $6 billion (5.5 billion euros). Forbes has now removed him from the global billionaire list. It is currently not possible to estimate how much of the assets are left, said insolvency expert Klaus Schaller from the creditors’ association KSV 1870 to the German Press Agency. This will now be put on the table in the bankruptcy proceedings.
“What will be particularly exciting is the question of whether and, if so, what mutual claims there are to Signa companies,” says Schaller. The question also arises as to whether assets in Benko’s private environment had been moved. So far, the entrepreneur has remained silent about the Signa crisis and his role in the decline of the intricate company network.
So far, Austrian tax authorities have made Benko owe tax debts of almost two million euros, as the dpa learned. However, the demands on the entrepreneur could be significantly higher. For example, the sovereign wealth fund Mubadala in Abu Dhabi is trying to collect 713 million euros from Benko and Signa companies.
Signa Group slipped into bankruptcy
Benko’s Signa Group slipped into bankruptcy at the beginning of the year – and with it the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe, the Elbtower in Hamburg and the German subsidiary Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. Some of the department store properties also belong to the Signa empire. Galeria had complained that Signa was demanding excessive rents for the department store properties.
Galeria boss Olivier van den Bossche wants to keep the department store group with around 15,000 employees and is looking for a new owner. Several discussions are currently underway, a spokesman for insolvency administrator Stefan Denkhaus said last Thursday.