Austrian investor: Things have been better for Benko
Status: 11/01/2022 5:47 p.m
Because of the protective shield insolvency proceedings of his department store chain Galeria, the major investor René Benko is again in focus. In his homeland he has to defend himself against allegations of bribery.
Somehow everything is coming together for Réne Benko at the moment. The 45-year-old billionaire made it from humble beginnings in Innsbruck to become one of the richest men in Austria – with real estate, first in Tyrol and now all over the world. He is known in Germany because his Signa holding company owns the department store chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof.
Wolfgang Vichtl
ARD Studio Vienna
Galeria in crisis, allegations of bribery
But there are problems again. Karstadt Kaufhof Gallery stands before the bankruptcy judge – for the second time in less than two years. The department store chain would like protection from a government million-euro umbrella, although 680 million euros in German tax money have already flowed.
And Benko also has a few problems in Austria. It is about the allegation of bribery, which is why prosecutors have already searched the Signa offices in Innsbruck and Vienna. Thomas Schmid, a former high-ranking official in the Austrian Ministry of Finance and head of cabinet, puts a heavy burden on Benko. Schmid is the key figure in the Austrian corruption scandals, the Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is forced to resign. Benko belonged to the advisory group of the ÖVP Chancellor.
Ten-year-old case comes to court
Schmid accuses Benko of having offered him a lucrative job in the Signa group. Consideration should have been to get two million-dollar tax matters “on track”. Schmid packt has announced to the “Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office” that he wants to become a key witness, despite mitigating circumstances. Benko has not yet commented on the allegations, he is presumed innocent.
At the same time, Benko is catching up with a case that is more than ten years old and is only now coming to court. The accusation here too: bribery. Signa is said to have donated to the association of Vienna City Councilor Christoph Chorherr – not entirely altruistically, according to the suspicion that the Signa Group rejects as “completely unjustified”. The former Green Party politician was responsible for urban planning in Vienna.
Estimated assets of 4.9 billion euros
Even before he graduated from high school, René Benko was converting attics in Innsbruck and turning them into luxury apartments. In an interview more than ten years ago – after which Benko became very quiet in public – he said how it worked: He “developed a great passion for entrepreneurship very early on” and was “not the classic training path via a high school diploma or a degree “gone.
At 20 he had his first million, but still in Austrian schillings. Austria’s business magazine “Trend” estimates Benko’s assets at 4.9 billion euros today. For the German mayor, Benko was initially considered the “savior of the inner cities” because he took over the ailing department store chains Karstadt and Kaufhof, whose stores characterize entire pedestrian zones. Benko is considered an ingenious networker, a very quick negotiator in his head, who is good at figures and convincing.
There are one or the other investment where you earn a little less. But then there are outstanding investments where you can earn a lot in just a few months. But I think one thing is remarkable: There is no investment where I have ever paid a euro extra.
This Benkos sentence was also more than ten years ago. So, say business partners, René Benko still argues: He has never lost money on his investments.
Benko’s empire is managed exclusively with foreign money. The entrepreneur is also involved in the Chrysler Building in New York, the luxury department store Selfridges in London and KaDeWe in Berlin. Another business of the Austrian in Germany WILL be overshadowed by the investigations against him: Benko is the investor behind the planned Elbtower in Hamburg, a 245-meter high-rise building that is expected to cost around one billion euros.