The most high-profile properties from the insolvent empire of the Austrian investor René Benko are to be sold by a trustee in the next few years. More than 400 creditors of the sub-company Signa Prime Selection AG voted for this solution in Vienna on Monday, as the insolvency administrator announced. In doing so, they decided against monetizing Signa’s core holdings more quickly, but at potentially lower returns. Signa Prime is considered the jewel of the complex Signa Group, which has slipped into crisis as a result of increased interest rates, construction costs and energy prices. The Prime portfolio includes, among others, the still unfinished Elbtower in Hamburg, the Berlin luxury department store KaDeWe, properties of the Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof department store chain and the building of the Austrian Constitutional Court.
The insolvency administrator Norbert Abel, as trustee, now has several years to realize all the properties. Creditors of Signa Prime have registered claims of around 12.8 billion euros. The administrator has so far only recognized around 5.9 billion euros of this. “Ultimately it is the most economically sensible solution,” said Gerhard Weinhofer from the creditor protection association Creditreform. In his trust plan, Abel assumes that the real estate market will recover in the coming years. “It is clear that in the end Signa will only exist on paper,” said Weinhofer. For tax reasons, Signa Prime’s German real estate is not formally subordinated to the trustee, but de facto he retains control over approval rights and over Signa Prime’s outstanding claims on its subsidiaries. The creditors’ meeting in Vienna was only about the winding up of Signa real estate, not about the sale of department store businesses such as KaDeWe and Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. However, these retailers, which also belong to the Signa Group, are also insolvent and are looking for buyers. The Republic of Austria positioned itself as a Signa creditor against the longer-term settlement. A quick sale would bring more clarity to the opaque group of companies and make any criminal investigations surrounding Signa’s demise easier, argued the Republic’s top legal representative, Wolfgang Peschorn, on radio Ö1 on Friday morning. “And I also hope that the criminal authorities will begin targeted investigations here as soon as possible,” he said. In Germany, the Munich public prosecutor’s office has already begun investigations into suspected money laundering at the Signa Group. A statement from the Munich authorities revealed last week that other public prosecutor’s offices in Germany are also involved in the case. René Benko’s lawyers have rejected reports of the allegations as “baseless”. Benko recently filed for bankruptcy himself. Signa, which was badly hit, tried to turn things around in the fall with the help of hired restructuring experts. In December, Signa Prime and Signa Development filed for bankruptcy. “The aim is the orderly continuation of operational business operations within the framework of self-management and the sustainable restructuring of the company,” said Signa at the time. There was no more talk of that on Monday. The creditors of the insolvent real estate development unit Signa Development Selection AG also voted for a trust plan on Monday. Signa Development faces claims of 2.3 billion euros, of which more than 1 billion have been recognized so far.