Huge demands

Gusenbauer and Co. to pay one billion

Benko confidant Alfred Gusenbauer

(Bild: APA/Roland Schlager/Hans Klaus Techt, stock.adobe.com)

One year and two weeks after the final collapse of the Signa Group conglomerate, the liquidators are stepping up the pace against the former board members.

According to research by "Krone" and "News", former members of the supervisory board around former chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer are also to be asked to pay heavily. They received explosive mail a week before Christmas: it is about one billion euros in claims that the bankruptcy trustees want to assert.

Until just under a year ago, Gusenbauer sat on the supervisory boards of the most important Benko companies: He presided over the controlling bodies of Signa Prime Selection and Signa Development Selection AG for many years and until the collapse. Both core companies of the deliberately opaque Signa Group have been insolvent since the end of 2023, with debts totaling tens of billions of euros.

Former SPÖ chairman Gusenbauer joined the financial juggler's company in 2009, just a few weeks after leaving the chancellorship, without a cooling-off period. He was well paid there. For one week's work per month, the now 64-year-old former chancellor was to receive a chancellor's salary of around 280,000 euros per year. Excluding bonus payments.

Million-euro consultant
In addition, Gusenbauer charged Signa Holding, which is now also insolvent, fees of over twelve million euros in the years 2020 to 2023 alone. For services in connection with the protective shield proceedings surrounding the German retail chain Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. What exactly Gusenbauer did in return is still the subject of speculation.

For former Benko supervisory board members, the stakes could now be very high. In addition to Alfred Gusenbauer, other prominent members of the supervisory board could also be in the draw. For example, the well-known French Benko investor Robert Peugeot, who held a supervisory board position at Signa Prime from 2019. The Peugeot family's assets are estimated at a good five billion euros.

In essence, the Signa supervisors are apparently accused of not having sufficiently controlled the operational management. René Benko, who has not formally exercised any official management function since 2013 but is regarded as the de facto ruler of the group, is said to have shifted money back and forth between the various companies with his CFO in order to plug liquidity gaps.

"Beer mat" calculations
Two aspects are particularly noteworthy: Firstly, the trustee in bankruptcy writes that material insolvency at Signa Prime already occurred on March 31, 2022. Secondly, he criticizes in the letter to the executive bodies that there was "no suitable controlling and no suitable financial planning". The insolvency administrator literally writes of "beer mat" calculations that would not meet the requirements of a large company with billions in sales.

A supervisory board meeting that took place in the luxurious Chalet N in Oberlech in 2014 also stands out in the review of the billion-euro bankruptcies. Chairman Alfred Gusenbauer opened the meeting at 4 pm. And closed it at 4.10 pm.