The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt and the BKA are searching more than 20 objects belonging to the real estate group Adler Real Estate. Among other things, it is about the suspicion of false accounting and market manipulation.
The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt is searching the real estate company Adler Real Estate. This was confirmed by a company spokesman for the Reuters news agency. The company is part of the Adler Group, one of the largest real estate developers in Germany. The company said it was cooperating fully with the public prosecutor.
The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt said that together with the BKA, they were searching a total of 21 properties – including business premises, apartments and a law firm – in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Erftstadt as well as in Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal, Monaco, Luxembourg and Great Britain. Around 175 officials were involved.
A spokeswoman said tagesschau.de, information on the results of the measure can no longer be expected today.
suspicion of bogus deals
According to the public prosecutor, the suspects are German, Austrian and English nationals between the ages of 38 and 66. They are accused of having misrepresented the company’s balance sheets in their function as board members in the period 2018 to 2020 or having provided assistance in this regard.
There is still the suspicion that the accused made offers of favors or bogus deals in order to drive up prices for projects and to be able to conclude profitable loan transactions, according to the Reuters news agency, the investigators said.
Merger companies formed
The Adler Group was only formed at the end of 2020 from the merger of the Luxembourg-based ADO Properties with the Berlin housing companies Adler Real Estate and Consus Real Estate. ADO Properties first took over its own major shareholder Adler Real Estate and then Consus.
The Adler Group has maintained several large construction projects across the country. A major project is the development of the site of the former Holsten brewery in Hamburg-Altona, where up to 1300 apartments were supposed to be built.
Allegations since 2021
Serious allegations against the Adler Group were made for the first time at the beginning of October 2021. The originator was the British short seller Fraser Perring, who makes money from the falling prices of the companies he criticizes. His research service Viceroy accused Adler of fraud, manipulation and deception of his financiers.
Adler rejected these allegations “in the strongest possible terms” and spoke of insinuations. In order to invalidate them, the company commissioned its auditor at the time, KPMG, to carry out a special audit. The report, published in mid-April 2022, pointed to deficiencies in the balance sheets but provided no evidence of systematic fraud.
However, according to their own statements, the auditors were denied access to thousands of the company’s files. In August 2022, the financial regulator BaFin also announced that Adler Real Estate’s 2019 annual balance sheet was incorrect.
billion loss in the past year
For the 2022 financial year, the real estate group reported a loss in the billions in April. The bottom line was a deficit of almost 1.7 billion euros due to a devaluation of the real estate portfolio and the value adjustment on receivables. The highly indebted Adler Group had only averted insolvency with concessions from the creditors.
The shareholders of the Adler Group only had their backs on the company last week. At an extraordinary general meeting in Luxembourg, they voted 100 percent to continue the company. 57 percent of Adler shareholders were represented there.
The members of the board of directors were discharged with 93.1 percent, although the company has still not found an auditor for the balance sheet for 2022. Adler Group had only averted insolvency with concessions from the creditors.