Innsbruck (OTS) – The implosion of René Benko’s Signa empire should now be a reason to question a few things. Starting with the meaning of zero interest rates through the question of personal liability to responsibility towards the public.
The fact that after the insolvency of the parent company of the Signa Group and numerous other parts of the group, their supporting pillars are now also going bankrupt was no longer all that surprising. Again, it involves many billions in liabilities. While the holding company had 5 billion euros in liabilities, the flagship Signa Prime with its top properties had more than 4.3 billion euros. Billions are also at stake at the development subsidiary Signa Development, whose bankruptcy filing is expected today. At least according to paper. Some of these debts are distributed among internal subsidiaries, of which the Signa Group has many hundreds. And whether the alleged super properties are really worth as much as René Benkos Signa made them believe over the years is another matter. Insolvency administrators, courts and creditor protectors face a Herculean task to create clarity here.
The implosion of the Signa empire marks the end of an era in a real estate paradise in which gigantism was the norm and money was virtually abolished. The Signa collapse must be an impetus to question a few things. For example, whether there should ever be zero interest rates again. Or whether you can continue to calculate the value of a property in such a tricky way using absurdly high rental expectations, just to be able to tap into further billions in loans and fan the flames of the real estate bubble. Banks are also criticized here. The German family businessman Wolfgang Grupp, for example, asked the broadcaster ntv to hold managers much more personally liable. It is incomprehensible that a Benko receives billions in loans and can therefore buy anything without personal liability.
A company the size of a Signa must also be forced to face the public – not just when it suits them. When asked, Benko was happy to explain that, as a private company, he was not accountable to anyone. That’s wrong. Signa describes itself as one of the largest European commercial real estate groups. As such, over the years he has shaped and reshaped districts of metropolises with millions of inhabitants and has thus penetrated deeply into areas of public interest. There was also a lot of tax money flowing in, just think of the plight around Karstadt/Kaufhof in Germany. And Benko’s special closeness to political decision-makers did not go unnoticed over the years. As you can now see, the years of secrecy haven’t exactly improved the whole situation – on the contrary.
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