Own system

Speculator Benko had a “beer mat” bill

Signa inventor Benko is being targeted by the Public Prosecutor's Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption.

(Bild: HERBERT NEUBAUER Christof Birbaumer Krone KREATIV,)

After the Benko raids at the end of June, the investigators apparently have no doubts: the financial juggler was the de facto managing director of his deliberately opaque Signa Group, although he had not held an official board position since 2013.

This is also reflected in the available orders for the house searches at René Benko and his most important managers, in which the real estate speculator is repeatedly referred to as the "de facto ruler".

"No decision without consulting Benko"
 The investigators refer, for example, to the testimony of a senior bank employee who, under an obligation to tell the truth, "made it explicitly clear that it had always been clear to him during the negotiations that René Benko had made the final decision". The witness also had the impression that the long-standing Signa CFO Manuel Pirolt "did not make any decisions without consulting René Benko". This was also made clear in an email regarding the shifting of assets around the Lake Garda villas, in which Pirolt "asked Benko how to proceed".

"Don't playdumb"
 The relationship was close, the tone sometimes rough. "Don't play dumb", consultant Benko once wrote to his highly paid numbers man Pirolt in connection with a kick-off meeting. Another time, he reminded the Signa CFO of the "consultant fees for 2022": "Can you take care of your most important consultant and pay the bills," wrote Benko. Pirolt immediately replied: "Already in the payment process."

As one of the few insiders, Pirolt apparently had a broad overview of the Signa construct. Until a recent, highly unconventional PR offensive, he was Benko's shadow man, who was probably also familiar with the darker corners of the bankrupt conglomerate. Until the end of June, Pirolt sat on the management boards of important Group companies. And on the board of the Laura Private Foundation, where shifted assets are suspected.

A "shadow account" called "Bierdeckel"
 Benko was kept permanently informed by Pirolt about the economic situation of the Signa Group: Clearly, no cash flow was to bypass the financial juggler. The "cash flow statement" in particular was often of interest to the Signa founder in the early hours of the morning. In recent years, Benko and Pirolt were linked by their own system. A kind of "shadow accounting", as research by "Krone" and "News" now shows. They actually called it a "beer mat".

Excerpt from the "Beer mat 2023": Benko and his head of finance had their own system.

(Bild: zVg)

It showed a simply structured overview of the incoming and outgoing payments of the most important Group companies. "WORST CASE" was regularly written there in bold green letters.

As is well known, this worst case scenario occurred on August 17, 2023. At that time, a fund from Korea canceled an urgently needed financial injection of 400 million euros for Benko. Whereupon Benko wrote a word with four capital letters to Pirolt: "FUCK".

The biggest bankruptcy of the Second Republic then took its course. An insolvency domino ensued. But it also led to a multitude of facts that led to investigations by the public prosecutor's office for economic affairs and corruption.