One million a month

Benko: what the bankrupt needed to live in 2023

Creditors are now demanding around 2.5 billion euros from René Benko

(Bild: APA/Hans Klaus Techt)

Bodyguards, domestic servants, luxury vacations: confidential documents show the lifestyle that financial juggler René Benko afforded himself.

Another hearing in the bankruptcy proceedings of entrepreneur René Benko took place in room 112 of the Innsbruck regional court at 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday. Creditors registered a further 400 million euros in claims over the summer, bringing the total to around 2.5 billion euros. However, administrator Andreas Grabenweger has so far only recognized a fraction of this - 47 million to be precise.

Interplay between luxury and ostentation
According to his bankruptcy petition on March 4, Benko only claims to have a monthly income of 3,700 euros. But how does he make ends meet with this income, which for years was a constant interplay between luxury and ostentation?

Research by "Krone" and "News" now provides the first insight into the private expenses that Austria's most famous bankrupt had for himself and his closest circle in 2023. In total, this amounts to just over twelve million euros. That's an average of around one million euros a month.

Lots of staff for the villas
The salaries of the staff in Innsbruck alone amounted to 1.047 million in the previous year. Added to this are 451,442 euros in non-wage labor costs. The bodyguards who continue to surround the 47-year-old Tyrolean cost a whopping 150,086 euros and 40 cents for the months of November and December 2023; before the collapse of the company conglomerate, the security guards were paid by the Signa Group.

Benko's villa in Innsbruck-Igls was the scene of a house search at the end of June

(Bild: Birbaumer Christof/Krone KREATIV)

361,945 euros had to be paid for the 1000-square-meter penthouse on Vienna's Fleischmarkt and 525,852 euros for the villa on Innsbruck's Hungerburg. The monthly rent for the villa in Innsbruck Igls, valued at 86 million, which was combed through by Soko Signa investigators at the end of June, is reportedly 161,717.80 euros per month. For the property on the Hungerburg, there is apparently a rent exemption until September 30, 2024 after an advance rent payment (360,000 euros).

The confidential statements also include payments to the wife: two million euros under the heading "Equity for a real estate investment" on January 27, 2023, and a further 150,000 for the "purchase of the horse Cayo" on April 26, 2023. 

"Miscellaneous payments" in 2023 include items such as "Chanel" (225,160 euros) and expenditure at a well-known Viennese gun store (69,000 euros). A total of 1.884 million euros was spent on the use of the 62-metre yacht, Chalet N in Oberlech and bookings with various on-demand flight companies (private jets, helicopters) in the previous year.

Benko's legal representatives are known to cash in handsomely: in 2023, the real estate speculator paid EUR 255,081.74 to Arnold Rechtsanwälte, the law firm of Signa and its inventor for many years.

Sale of Fabios shares
What did financial juggler Benko receive in 2023? According to the secret documents, Signa's monthly salary payments of EUR 34,924.26 each flowed into Benko's Bawag account until October 2023. A vacation allowance of 87,934 euros was paid out in June. In addition, consultancy fees totaling EUR 1.15 million were paid by four Signa companies (Development, Prime, Prime Holding and Financial Services) between January and March. 

In September 2023, Benko transferred his stake in the Viennese luxury Italian restaurant Fabios to his Laura Private Foundation for EUR 650,000, with which he officially no longer wants to have anything to do. In the meantime, his long-standing private pilot is now the chairman of the Laura foundation.

Four loans from the mother
In 2023, a total of 6.15 million euros flowed from the Laura Private Foundation into a private Benko account, according to the documents. Four loans amounting to more than three million, which Ingeborg Benko granted to her son between November 24 and December 18, appear conspicuous.

Incidentally, his mother did not register any claims in René Benko's personal bankruptcy proceedings. The trustee in bankruptcy would have denied this anyway, as he explained on request. However, according to research by "Krone" and "News", the retired kindergarten teacher has been paying bills for the bankrupt's personal security since 2024: a good 40,000 to 50,000 euros per month.