The Signa Group has grown significantly in recent years. Spectacular projects such as the Hamburg Elbtower caused a stir. Now the holding company of the company network is insolvent.
Signa Holding GmbH, owned by the Austrian real estate and trading entrepreneur René Benko, has announced insolvency proceedings. The Signa Group announced that the holding company would apply to the Vienna Commercial Court on Wednesday to open restructuring proceedings under self-administration. “Despite considerable efforts in recent weeks, the necessary liquidity for an out-of-court restructuring could not be sufficiently secured,” the statement said.
The real estate and trading group Signa grew strongly in times of historically low interest rates. But since the start of the Ukraine war, the real estate industry has been struggling with increased construction and energy costs as well as higher interest rates – The Signa Group was not spared from this either.
Benko’s Signa Group has been in crisis for weeks
The group includes numerous commercial properties in Germany and Austria as well as the department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, which has already gone through two insolvency proceedings. Signa is building the 245 meter high Elbtower in Hamburg. The project is currently at a standstill.
In the past few weeks, Signa’s sports retail division and German property management company filed for bankruptcy. At the beginning of November, under pressure from his fellow shareholders, Benko announced that he would withdraw as chairman of the Signa advisory board. The German restructuring expert Arndt Geiwitz was commissioned with the restructuring at the time.
Source: Stern
