New names emerge

Signa billion-dollar bankruptcy: dark clouds over Bolzano

Signa founder René Benko and Signa major investor Hans Peter Haselsteiner (right), who has held a 24% stake in Bolzano Airport since 2019.

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/REUTERS, APA/EXPA/JFK, stock.adobe.com)

In the course of the anti-mafia investigations in Italy, a South Tyrolean entrepreneur who took over the airport with Benko and Haselsteiner in 2019 is also being targeted.

The investigations by the anti-mafia public prosecutor's office in Trento have not only triggered a major quake south of the Brenner Pass. Investigators suspect that Signa founder René Benko is the head of a criminal organization that is said to have influenced construction projects with the help of his South Tyrolean governor Heinz Peter Hager and an entrepreneur. Also at the political level. The main accused deny all allegations and the presumption of innocence applies.

The name Josef Gostner also appears in the judicial files. The head of the South Tyrolean airline SkyAlps is alleged to have misled the Italian civil aviation authority together with the representative of a company commissioned to extend the runway at Bolzano airport: They had "concealed the actual groundwater level in the area of the (...) affected area", the judiciary suspects. And thus obtained approval for the larger runway.

The actual groundwater level in the area of the (...) affected area was concealed.

Vermutung der Justizbehörden

Gostner took over Bolzano Airport in 2019 as the majority owner (52%). With two partners who shared the rest on a fraternal basis: René Benko and Hans Peter Haselsteiner, a NEOS supporter and major investor in Benko's financially ailing Signa. Tyrolean-born Haselsteiner had come under fire shortly before the purchase of the airport because he - like Gostner - donated 25,000 euros to the ruling South Tyrolean People's Party via one of his companies. Benko's right-hand man sat on the SVP's donation committee and was also supposed to handle the airport deal for Gostner, Benko's Signa and Haselsteiner: Heinz Peter Hager. SVP provincial governor Arno Kompatscher signed for South Tyrol.

It would now be interesting to find out how Haselsteiner views the current developments surrounding his Bolzano airport partners in his adopted home. And how he assesses the ongoing nosedive of bankrupt Benko. But the Strabag founder declined to be interviewed.

250 million for the "Gesamtkunstwerk"
Haselsteiner had trusted in Benko's high-flying qualities until shortly before the big Signa crash. In 2021, his foundation increased its stake in the Signa holding company from ten to 15 percent. In an email from August 2021, Haselsteiner told the financial juggler in flowery words that his son had said the following during the decision-making process: "As I believe in René as a total work of art, this step makes sense." Postscript: "Perhaps you will be pleased with this statement." He even considered the real estate speculator as a possible successor at the Erl Festival.

At the time, Haselsteiner asked Benko to make use of his financing experts. He needed a 250 million loan to increase the Signa shares. Benko's response: "We would be happy to support you in structuring the ideal financing."

In the end, Raiffeisen Bank International provided around 250 million euros for Haselsteiner's investment. What remains of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" is a billion-euro bankruptcy.