The Berlin Senate Department for Economic Affairs is concerned about the latest developments in billionaire René Benko’s real estate and trading empire. “The economic administration assesses the situation as serious and volatile,” the authority said on Thursday in response to a request from the German Press Agency. She is in contact with the Berlin locations, the management of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (GKK) and Signa, the trade association as well as other affected cities and federal states.
The most important units of the Signa trading and real estate group led by Benko are seeking insolvency proceedings. Signa Prime Selection AG applied for self-administration restructuring proceedings at the Vienna Commercial Court on Thursday, the company announced. Signa Prime includes commercial properties in top locations, including the Elbtower in Hamburg, the KaDeWe in Berlin and department store properties from the Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof chain. Signa Prime builds and rents real estate. Other companies are responsible for the retail business of the department stores.
According to the Senate administration, it cannot yet be conclusively answered what specific effects the new bankruptcies and the planned restructuring procedures would have. In Berlin, the Signa Group only owns the properties in the case of the two Galeria locations Kurfürstendamm and Hermannplatz and, in the case of KaDeWe, together with a Thai investor. “The Senate attaches great importance to department stores in Berlin as anchor tenants in shopping streets and in their role in providing local supplies to people.”
The fact that, as a result of the last GKK insolvency proceedings in the spring of this year, de facto all Berlin GKK department store locations remained in existence, shows for the Senate “their fundamental attractiveness and future viability”. This also applies to the internationally famous and economically strong KaDeWe. “The economic administration and the Senate therefore fully adhere to the goal of further developing the department store locations in Berlin and securing jobs. This is a top priority and we will make this clear to any future investors and expect reliability and the assumption of responsibility at this point.” (dpa)