Question for the courts

Benko: When was the Signa Group short of cash?

Financial juggler René Benko(Bild: Klemens Groh, picturedesk, Krone KREATIV)

When did financial juggler René Benko's non-transparent Signa construct run out of money? This question could possibly occupy the courts in the near future. 

Signa Holding, the parent company, has been in insolvency since the end of November 2023, followed by Signa Prime and Signa Development, the most important subsidiaries, at the end of December.

According to confidential Signa documents available to "News" and "Krone", the then CEO of Signa Prime Selection AG asked his investors around Christmas 2022 to defer profit distributions for the 2021 financial year. Only the German RAG Foundation and the Hamburg billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne, who had invested more than half a billion euros through his holding company shortly before, did not agree and had their dividends transferred. Kühne received 16.5 million euros from Signa Prime and the RAG Foundation eleven million euros. René Benko was also involved in the negotiations, although in fact and according to the company register he had no official function at Signa.

Eight percent interest
According to Krone research, the other shareholders were promised a payout in mid-May 2023. In addition, the "interest for the deferral period" was to amount to a considerable eight percent.

Quite remarkable: the then CEO of Signa Prime Selection AG assured investors around Christmas 2022 that there would also be no bonus payments to the Management Board members until May 15, 2023. A few months later, it became known that the four-member Management Board of Signa Prime had been awarded bonuses totaling EUR 19 million for the disastrous year 2022 alone, which had resulted in a loss of more than one billion euros.