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Property tycoon René Benko, founder of the Signa group, has filed for personal insolvency in Austria, as a corporate empire that spanned luxury properties and department stores across Europe and the US unravels in the courts.
A spokesperson for Innsbruck district court told the Financial Times that it had received an insolvency filing on behalf of the 46 year old and was currently assessing it.
The court was already reviewing Benko’s personal financial situation after Austria filed an insolvency motion against him earlier this year. A lawyer for Benko, who Forbes ranked as one of the richest Austrians until last year, confirmed that he filed a motion on Benko’s behalf on Wednesday evening.
Key companies in Benko’s Signa group are already in administration as part of the largest and most complex insolvency proceedings in Austria’s history.
Signa, which piled up billions of euros in debt, disintegrated under rising interest rates, falling property valuations and lenders’ increasing reluctance to refinance loans.
Benko was one of Europe’s most flamboyant property developers, building a complex empire of interlinked subsidiaries that held stakes in New York’s Chrysler Building, London’s Selfridges and even the building that houses Austria’s constitutional court in Vienna.
Before its collapse last year, Signa had a helicopter and corporate jet at Benko’s disposal, and employed party planners, hunters and private jet crew to entertain clients and burnish the group’s reputation.
The group never published consolidated accounts and did not disclose its overall level of debt.
Last month, Signa creditors filed a criminal complaint against their former business partner, urging Austria’s anti-fraud prosecutors to investigate events at the collapsed property group.
Creditors of the two most important companies in the group are also pushing to oust management and hand over control to independent auditors, over fears their interests are being sidelined in favour of a tightly knit group of investors based in Austria.