Billionaire Kühne: That’s how much money he lost because of René Benko

Klaus-Michael Kühne is considered one of Germany’s most experienced entrepreneurs. The 87-year-old has built one of the biggest shipping companies in the world with Kuehne + Nagel, he also has shares in the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd and is the largest shareholder in Lufthansa. Kuhne applies with estimated net worth of more than 37.7 billion US dollars (equivalent to approximately 35.7 billion euros) as one of the richest Germans.

But Klaus-Michael Kühne also invested with real estate investor René Benko, which has since collapsed. He was one of the most important investors in Austria. Now Kühne has revealed in an interview how he was able to fall for Benko – and how much money he lost as a result.

René Benko was a brilliant billionaire until 2023

René Benko was one of Europe’s brightest billionaires until 2023. The Austrian worked his way up from a humble background and built what is now one of the largest real estate empires in the world. – world: Signa Holding. It included luxury buildings in prime locations, such as Hamburg’s Elbtower, or retail establishments such as Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. It finally worked last year Pursuit break surprisingly.

Kühne, revealed this in a conversation with “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“I lost about half a billion euros because of Benko.

How could this happen? “He had me wrapped around his finger,” Kühne admits, looking back, self-critically. He said he wanted to get to know him. “And then I invited him to my house. I showed ea some beautiful buildings there and painted a rosy picture in other ways. “It must be said that the situation was like that at the time,” said the billionaire. Kühne believes that Benko would not have expected a crisis in the real estate sector to come so quickly. “Or maybe he took that into account as a guess. I really didn’t expect it.”

Background: The real estate industry in Europe has been in crisis since 2022. Above all, rising interest rates and construction costs made it more difficult to finance construction projects.

Kühne: “Benko also lied to us”

Nevertheless, Kühne blames his friend Benko who was formerly a billionaire for some of the blame. “Benko also lied to us and provided false information. So we didn’t notice at first that his funding had shaky foundations. “We really fell for it,” says Kühne.

However, Kühne was one of the investors who noticed before many others that something was not quite right. A year before the big break, Kühne pulled the plug on Austria’s Benko.

According to the book “Inside Signa – The Rise and Fall of René Benko(published by Edition A) invited Benko to his own luxury hotel, The Fontaney, five stars, directly on the Hamburg Alster, for a bankruptcy speech on December 1, 2022. However, the meeting should not last long. “Just a few minutes after the conversation started, Kühne suddenly stands up from the fixed table. It leaves Benko cold as ice,” the book says.

After that, Benko tried to save what could no longer be saved. “Dear Mr. Kühne, I am truly lost! I came to Hamburg today especially to meet you and Mr. Gernandt (seat for Kühne on the board of directors of Signa Holding, editor’s note) “To continue the conversation from October and to give you ideas and advice as the second largest shareholder,” Benko wrote in the e-mail, from which “Bild” reports. “I’d like the chance to talk to you in person, even if it’s just an hour after lunch,” he said.There was no response from Kuhne.

So Benko sent a second email soon after. “A short personal conversation with you would be very important to me – I’m still with you at the hotel. 10 minutes is enough,” he wrote.

“Trust is destroyed”

This time Austria received an email. But, not as he had thought. “To Mr. Benko,” the 80-year-old woman writes. “I am sorry – the trust has been destroyed and I have asked Mr. Gernandt to inform you that I want our share in Signa Prime Selection AG to be reversed. This must be formally decided by the board of directors of Kühne Holding AG, which I hereby inform of my wish and which I would like to request to be implemented immediately.”