In the shadowy realm of Laura

Benko continues to pull strings: “Are you mentally ill?”

String-puller René Benko

(Bild: Krone KREATIV)

Confidential documents show how Austria's best-known bankrupt continues to juggle millions in his Laura private foundation.

With his Signa Group, he has made the biggest bankruptcies in Austrian post-war history. In March, he filed for personal bankruptcy as an entrepreneur. Since then, he has presented himself as a penniless bankrupt. It is said that René Benko has no more to live on than the pocket money his liquidator provides him with from his current income of 3,700 euros.

In fact, the real estate speculator continues to act as an influential string-puller in the background. As a juggler without greed. As the head of a shadow empire that he set up, into which Benko's trustees and creditors want to penetrate after the crash of Signa and its founder.

Specifically, this involves the Laura Private Foundation and its subsidiaries, which have considerable real estate assets in Austria and Germany. Benko is no longer one of the beneficiaries of Laura and is trying to create the impression that he has nothing to do with the business officially. Benko's 74-year-old mother Ingeborg, a retired kindergarten teacher, is officially registered as the main beneficiary of the Laura Private Foundation.

"What's this nonsense?"
 Confidential documents obtained by "Krone" and "News", however, show the audacity with which Austria's best-known bankrupt apparently carries on as if there had been no billion-euro bankruptcies. This can be seen in an email correspondence from March 2024, for example, in which the Tyrolean, who is on paper functionless, directly attacks one of the managing directors of the Laura Group.

"Subject: Foundation properties".

René Benko writes from his Laura email account to the foundation's top manager: "Are you insane? We had a spontaneous phone call today about whether the buyer for M25 and Adamgasse is already known and not a syllable more. We haven't spoken a single syllable about other properties, let alone all of them, and not even about short-term liquidity requirements."

In a rage: Benko is fleecing the managing director of a foundation subsidiary.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/zVg)

Apparently, Laura properties were offered on the market by this managing director more widely than Benko would have liked. The real estate speculator is furious. The email in which he inquires about the mental health of the managing director of the Laura subsidiary is also copied to Signa Holding managing director Marcus "Unterschriften-August" Mühlberger, who has been helping Benko to manage the real estate assets of the Laura Private Foundation for years.

Even more information about Benko's decisive role in the foundation can be found in an email from April 2024:

"Subject: foundation real estate Innsbruck".

Again, Benko is outraged by an email from the managing director, who has informed an Innsbruck estate agent that the previous talks "unfortunately have to be put on ice".

Benko, who officially should not have any influence on the management of the Laura Foundation and its companies, literally explodes and taps the keys furiously, typos included:

"What's this nonsense? There was a clear specification and approval from the foundation's board." According to Benko, the managing director should have been allowed to offer "a (!) Munich estate agent with two (!) German potential investors the houses at Museumsstrasse 25 and Adamgasse" using a confidentiality agreement - "and no more."

Instead, "NO (!) Munich estate agent" was involved, but one from Innsbruck, which is why Benko rages: "... The properties were offered without authorization," he says. The Innsbruck estate agent had signed a confidentiality agreement and "clearly breached it". And the managing director of the Laura subsidiary had "disregarded all guidelines!!!"

"No morefun"
 Benko continues to write in a rage: "No more fun now." According to Benko, the managing director must deliver "a complete written report today, as requested by the foundation's board". Once again, the secret string-puller in Laura adds three exclamation marks. In conclusion, Benko notes: "I have to report to the foundation's board of directors about these grievances and will not tolerate any 'MIRACLES' or 'LIES'."

A copy of the letter was sent to the South Tyrolean auditor Heinz Peter Hager, who is regarded as Benko's last governor and acts as chairman of the board of the Laura Private Foundation. 

Who is really in charge?
Abuses. Games. Tales of lies. Benko's emails are explosive, because from the point of view of the creditors who are demanding billions from the 47-year-old Tyrolean bankrupt, the question arises as to who is really in charge at Laura.

Is Benko also the de facto ruler at Laura Privatstiftung, as was - according to the investigators - already the case at Signa? And what role do the two Signa managers Mühlberger and Pirolt (CFO until summer 2024) play in the Benkos' Laura shadowy realm?

Manuel Pirolt, who also served on the board of the Laura Foundation until the end of June, is likely to have been a particularly loyal servant of his lord and master. At the end of April 2024, he sent an email with clear instructions to third parties, which were actually pre-formulated by a man who has been officially considered to be without means and function for months: René Benko.