Police raid Austrian HQ of Selfridges proprietor Signa

Austrian police have raided the headquarters of René Benko’s Signa Group, considered one of Europe’s largest luxurious actual property buyers.

Innsbruck-based Signa has a €24bn property portfolio that features excessive finish departments shops Selfridges in London and KaDeWe in Berlin, in addition to prime motels and property in Zurich, Vienna and Munich and New York’s Chrysler Constructing.

Police searched Signa headquarters on Tuesday, confiscating laptops, onerous drives, paperwork and cell phones, in a swoop related to a sprawling investigation by Austria’s state prosecutor into corruption on the high of the federal government.

Benko, the billionaire proprietor of Signa, has lower a particular determine for years, mingling with highly effective politicians throughout central Europe.

In his native Austria, the place he’s an everyday fixture within the tabloid press due to his status for extravagant events, usually combining champagne and Lederhosen, he was seen as notably near former chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Kurz was pressured to resign final October amid allegations of corruption.

Tuesday’s raid follows an announcement on Tuesday from the Austrian prosecutor for financial crime and corruption (WKStA) that considered one of Kurz’s closest political confidants, Thomas Schmid, a high finance ministry official, had turned state witness earlier this 12 months and had offered investigators with greater than 15 full days of testimony.

A duplicate of the WKStA warrant ordering the raid in opposition to Signa and Benko was obtained by the Monetary Occasions and confirmed as real by authorities officers. Information of the raid was first reported by Austria’s state broadcaster ORF and Der Customary newspaper.

The WKStA warrant particulars dealings between Schmid and Benko, and alleges Benko sought to make use of aggressive accounting to keep away from paying tens of millions in taxes.

The warrant says prosecutors have cause to suspect Benko of bribery and incitement to abuse of workplace. It alleges he provided Schmid a profitable job at Signa if he may use his affect, earlier than he left authorities, to settle an investigation by tax authorities into his accounting strategies.

Signa and Benko didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Bonds issued by the group dropped to their lowest stage on report on Tuesday. A €300mn bond due in 2026 fell to simply beneath 56 cents on the euro.

Although well-known within the German-speaking enterprise world, Benko started a daring enlargement into different actual property markets — utilizing his trademark strategy of political savvy, leverage and sophisticated monetary engineering — simply because the pandemic hit the high-end retail, luxurious and journey sectors upon which his property empire is constructed.

Signa has insisted that the prime quality of his property, that are usually in outstanding city-centre areas, makes his enterprise extra resilient.

The corporate has struggled to boost new capital by public bond choices lately, but it surely has continued to draw rich households and different co-investors, corresponding to Thailand’s Central Group, to inject new cash.