Signa Holding GmbH, the Austrian real estate and trading company Rene Benko
has announced bankruptcy 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 liquidity required for an out-of-court restructuring could not be sufficiently secured,” the statement said.
Signa is not spared from the crisis either
The real estate and trading group Signa grew strongly in times of historically low interest rates. But since the start of the war in Ukraine, the real estate industry has been struggling with increased construction and energy costs as well as higher interest rates – the Signa Group has not been spared either.
The corporate group includes numerous commercial properties in Germany and Austria as well as the department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof, who has already had two insolvency proceedings. Signa is building the 245 meter high one in Hamburg Elbe Tower. 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 that time. (dpa)