As of: February 9, 2024, 4:46 p.m
By: Lars-Eric Nievelstein
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The bankruptcy avalanche of René Benko's Signa Group is spreading.
The RAG Foundation from Essen was also affected.
The foundation loses millions - allegedly due to sheer carelessness.
Essen – The amount that the RAG Foundation from Essen lost due to its investment in the Signa Group is said to be between 180 and 350 million euros.
A few weeks ago she wrote off all of her investments.
“That’s obviously annoying.
People don’t like taking steps like that,” Bernd Tönjes, chairman of the foundation’s board, told the
FAZ
.
It was between one and two percent of the total assets.
Now new allegations are being made: the foundation worked improperly.
Depreciation sum of the RAG-Stiftung in the Signa investment |
180 million euros to 350 million euros |
|---|---|
Dividend payments from Signa to RAG-Stiftung after entry in 2017 |
60 million euros |
Claims of creditors against Signa |
8.5 billion euros |
RAG-Stiftung writes off up to 350 million euros
Actually, the RAG Foundation is primarily an instrument for the “socially acceptable” end of subsidized hard coal production.
After this has ended, so-called eternal tasks are part of their duties, including mine water management and groundwater purification.
“Without the permanent operation of pumps and polder measures, large parts of the Ruhr area would be under water today,” the foundation writes on its homepage.
In the maelstrom of the Signa insolvency – carelessness at the RAG Foundation © IMAGO / Michael Gstettenbauer
The statutes also stipulate that the RAG Foundation may acquire direct and indirect investments in RAG companies.
The “use, management and increase of assets” is also documented as a fixed task.
However, its investment in the insolvent Signa Group did not only have positive consequences for the foundation.
In the course of the Signa insolvency, the RAG-Stiftung wrote off between 180 and 350 million euros.
“As of today, we no longer have any risk in Signa,” the
dpa
quoted chairman Tönjes as saying.
“Dull mood” at Signa – as early as 2022
In 2017, when the RAG Foundation joined Signa Prime, the signs were good.
There was no way around Signa if companies wanted to invest in “high-quality European real estate”.
60 million euros were returned in dividends, and later another 20 million euros through a partial sale.
However, the RAG Foundation announced that the mood would have “deteriorated significantly” from 2022 onwards.
According to Die
Zeit
, the foundation simply “sloppily” made the Signa investment.
Not only was there at least some overlap in responsibilities - for example, Jürgen-Johann Rupp, CFO of the RAG-Stiftung, sat on the supervisory board of both Signa Prime and Signa Development.
Rupp was also “regularly” absent from important general meetings.
Signa Prime had invited people to these meetings in Innsbruck;
According to the Austrian Stock Corporation Act, members of the supervisory board “must be present at the general meeting as far as possible”.
Signa Prime CFO represents RAG Foundation before Signa Prime general meeting
However, that was not the only “negligence”.
As a shareholder in a Viennese law firm, the foundation had granted proxy voting rights for the general meeting.
They were also represented by Manuel Pirolt, Signa Prime's CFO, at Signa Prime's general meeting.
At these meetings, hundreds of thousands of euros flowed to the supervisory boards.
In 2021, the ten members of the supervisory board allowed themselves 837,000 euros, in 2022 it was 980,000 euros, and in 2023, just a few months before the Signa bankruptcy, 994,000 euros.
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In the same year, Signa Development received 622,000 euros, reported Die
Zeit
, which had access to the minutes.
Someone should have asked at the general meetings by 2023 at the latest.
The European Central Bank had already checked Signa's solvency in the summer.
The “very dark” mood that Tönjes had spoken of had already set in here long ago.
Opaque financial transactions at Signa
The RAG Foundation thus joins a growing list of those affected who are forced to forego their investments due to the bankruptcy of the Signa Group.
Among other things, Galeria Kaufhof has already had to file for bankruptcy, the Munich branch of Sportscheck had to close, and the city of Hamburg could take over the Elbtower, which also belongs to a company from the Signa Group.
There had already been at least questionable financial transactions in the Signa area beforehand, which are now being investigated in painstaking detail.
For example, the restructuring officer Erhard Grossnigg had demanded hundreds of millions without explaining why, Signa had granted Benko's loans worth 300 million euros to private foundations and just a few days ago Signa investors filed a criminal complaint against the group.
The insolvency proceedings are ongoing – creditors had registered claims worth 8.5 billion euros.
With material from dpa