René Benko, where do we know him from?
What the pope is to Rome, René Benko is to the center of Vienna. At least, that’s the joke according to the real estate investor financial news agency Bloomberg even sometimes towards business relations. Even though Benko is only 45 years old, he now owns billions worth of palatial, highly sought-after properties in the Austrian capital.
To name a few examples: Benko owns the city’s most expensive hotel, the Kunstforum and two entire blocks of shops in the most exclusive streets. And that’s only in Vienna. In Germany, the Austrian owns the well-known department store KaDeWe, in Venice he has a lavish palazzo and in New York the Chrysler tower belongs to him. Benko himself lives just outside his birthplace Innsbruck in a castle located on a hill.
Yet the Netherlands knows the real estate investor, who started his empire of 24 billion euros by renovating attics as a teenager, not so much from his buildings. Here he is best known as co-owner of the British Selfridges, the parent company of the Dutch Bijenkorf.
Why is he making the news now?
revealed last Wednesday business newspaper Financial Times that Benko and his investment fund Signa no longer have to turn to Deutsche Bank for fresh capital. Germany’s largest bank has refused him as a customer since the end of last year because the name of the real estate billionaire fell last fall in a long-running corruption case.
This case involves bribery up to the highest political level in Austria. The scandal forced Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, a close friend of Benko, to resign at the end of 2021. A senior official and confidant of Kurz, who presented himself as a witness, alleged, among other things, that Benko had avoided millions in taxes through questionable bookkeeping.
When the Austrian tax authorities wanted to investigate these practices, Benko would have asked the official to intervene in exchange for a well-paid job at his investment fund. The billionaire denies those allegations and has not yet been formally charged. Benko was acquitted last year in another corruption case. In 2012, he was given a suspended prison sentence for bribery.
Is his empire now in danger?
The exact consequences of Deutsche’s decision are not entirely clear. The bank wants opposite Financial Times do not discuss relationships with (former) customers. A lawyer for Benko’s fund Signa says the company has “no existing loans” with Deutsche and no other ties to the bank. According to the lawyer, Deutsche is certainly not the most important lender for Signa.
It was different in the past: then Deutsche gave advice on business deals, among other things. In 2021, the bank was still involved in the issue of hundreds of millions of euros in bonds. Deutsche is also the lender of the German Galeria Kaufhof, one of Benko’s department stores. That is the only mutual relationship that the bank does not end. According to FT sources, because Kaufhof is in deep financial distress, which would make ending the cooperation politically sensitive.
In the absence of columnist Marike Stellinga, who is on writing leave, chooses NRC every Saturday a person of the week.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of February 18, 2023