"Fully taken in"

Investor Kühne: Lost half a billion with Benko

Hamburg logistics entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kühne has lost half a billion euros due to the collapse of René Benko's real estate group Signa.

"In total, we have lost half a billion euros at Signa Prime and thus almost our entire investment," the major investor Kühne told the "FAZ" newspaper. For the shareholders of Benko's company Signa Prime, there is hardly anything left of the available funds, as some of the creditors have preferential rights.

"He has me wrapped around his finger"
"And the properties are of course no longer worth that much anyway. It will probably all go under." Kühne said he wondered how he could have fallen for Benko. "He had me wrapped around his finger." Benko had lied in part and provided false information.

"We really fell for it"
"At the beginning, we didn't realize that his financing was based on a solid foundation. We really fell for it," said Kühne, who is also the majority shareholder of the Kühne + Nagel Group, which was established under his leadership and is one of the world's leading logistics service providers.

The Tyrolean real estate investor Benko and his Signa conglomerate have suffered the largest insolvency in Austria to date, with debts running into billions. Creditors have filed claims amounting to billions.

Smaller businesses are also affected, thousands of jobs have been lost. At the same time, Benko continues to lead a luxurious lifestyle, which surprises many people in Austria. "It's a joke that a bankrupt can even invite someone like that on a hunt," criticized one citizen in connection with Benko's famous hunting photo with Tyrol's SPÖ leader Georg Dornauer.