If you stroll along Mariahilfer Strasse, the longest shopping mile in Europe, according to self-promotion, you will pass the huge construction site: Here the Signa group of Austrian multimillionaire René Benko is building the luxury department store “Lamarr” with a roof park and hotel. Until a few years ago, a conventional furniture store from Kika/Leiner stood here. Around the turn of the year 2017/2018, Benko bought the figurehead of the financially ailing furniture chain. With the active help of the ÖVP, the competent district court was opened up between the years and a senior official was brought back from vacation.
Six months later, Benko bought the entire furniture chain. He promised a renovation and the preservation of jobs. What do you say when you think in terms of the euro sign?
The then Chancellor Sebastian Kurz celebrated the “Austrian solution” as a “vote of confidence in the location” and thus, as always, also himself proven?
Above all, Benko saved his millions; he sold the properties that were part of the overall deal at a profit, as well as the Eastern European business. He also saved himself from the debts that Kika/Leiner had accumulated; liabilities are said to be around 130 million. The furniture chain was recently sold for a small amount and filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter. It is to be continued for the time being but more than half of the 40 locations will be closed, at least 1300 employees will have to go.
Tax money was not saved. Because Kika/Leiner owed the state a lot of money, there is talk of up to 100 million, because the Signa company at the time not only received generous corona aid during the pandemic, but also a tax deferral. The money is gone now.
In Germany, too, Benko is known for happily maximizing profits, bagging, closing or dismissing tax aid – and cleaning himself up when he leaves. Incidentally, in the case of Kika/Leiner, there was not just one, but probably two “Austrian solutions”. Again butterfly revealed that the Kurz government is said to have spared its ÖVP friend Benko a tax audit: it was about the wondrous increase in value of another million-euro investment, the “Golden Quarter” in Vienna’s Tuchlauben. Although brave officials in the Ministry of Finance disagreed, the examination procedure was influenced by the highest authority, Signa moved its company headquarters to Innsbruck, where the procedure was ended in Signa’s sense. Now the opposition is considering a committee of inquiry into Benko and politics, which is due to start in the fall. There is enough material.
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