Real estate empire - Senate administration: Signa development is "serious"
The Berlin Senate Department for Economics is concerned about the latest developments at billionaire René Benko's real estate and retail empire. "The economic administration considers the situation to be serious and volatile," the authority said on Thursday in response to a request from the German Press Agency. It is in contact with the Berlin locations, the management of Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof (GKK) and Signa, the trade association and other affected cities and federal states. The most important units of the Signa retail and real estate group around Benko are seeking insolvency proceedings. Signa Prime Selection AG applied for debtor-in-possession restructuring proceedings at the Vienna Commercial Court on Thursday, the company announced. Signa Prime owns commercial real estate in prime locations, including the Elbtower in Hamburg, the KaDeWe in Berlin and department store properties of the Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof chain. Signa Prime builds and lets real estate. Other companies are responsible for the retail business of the department stores.
According to the Senate Administration, it is not yet possible to give a definitive answer as to the specific effects of the new insolvencies and the restructuring proceedings being pursued. In Berlin, the Signa Group only owns the properties in the two Galeria locations on Kurfürstendamm and Hermannplatz and, in the case of KaDeWe, together with a Thai investor. "The Senate attaches great importance to department stores in Berlin as anchor tenants in shopping streets and in their function in providing local amenities for people." The fact that, as a result of the last GKK insolvency proceedings in the spring of this year, all of Berlin's GKK department store locations have de facto remained open demonstrates "their fundamental attractiveness and future viability" for the Senate. This also applies to the internationally famous and economically strong KaDeWe. "The economic administration and the Senate are therefore fully committed to the goal of further developing the department store locations in Berlin and securing jobs. This is our top priority and we will also make this clear to any future investors and expect reliability and the assumption of responsibility at this point."
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Source: www.stern.de
