Signa Prime chaos

Benko: Are small investors being ripped off?

Signa bigwigs Haselsteiner (l.), Benko: there is also little transparency in the insolvency proceedings

(Bild: APA/Helmut Fohringer, Krone KREATIV)

The non-transparent group has stashed away valuable properties in the insolvent Signa Prime. Representatives of investors, who have to look after the money of the "little people", fear a restructuring in favor of existing large investors. And are calling on the court to withdraw self-administration. 

A few weeks ago, Hans Peter Haselsteiner, the second-largest investor in the opaque Signa conglomerate alongside René Benko, tried to reassure the television audience on Zeit-im-Bild-2: The biggest bankruptcy in Austrian economic history would primarily affect a few wealthy investors, and hardly any smaller investors would be affected by the financial jugglers' billion-dollar disaster.

Hasty realization
On closer inspection, it becomes clear that this is yet another one of those distorted images that have apparently been painted for years in the Benko empire of intransparency. After all, the insolvency of Signa Prime Selection AG could be a case of hastily selling off assets at the expense of numerous small investors under the eyes of the insolvency court and then spreading a kind of shroud over the "Signa sins" of the past.

At any rate, this is the impression conveyed by the submission to the Commercial Court of Vienna by those 35 institutional creditors who represent a quarter of the creditors' claims and are now rehearsing the uprising before the bankruptcy judge. The Krone has received the explosive document.