Alsterhaus

"Together with the head of her family office, she hosts a video conference with a small circle of managers and investors who gather whenever concrete superlatives beckon. The most important, René Benko, is connected from Austria. He wants to convince Alannah of himself and his business partner Tos Chirathivat, who has sent a representative. With a member of one of the economically most powerful family clans in Thailand, he already manages several luxury department stores like KaDeWe in Berlin or Alsterhaus in Hamburg: huge cathedrals for brand believers whose religions are named Gucci, Prada, or Saint Laurent. Although he is not the bidder with the highest offer, Benko tells Ms. Weston, but he is the one with the best intentions. His strategy: best owner instead of best bidder."

""We have of course been following the reporting over the past years and have repeatedly asked ourselves how comfortable we feel with Signa," a board member of Signal Iduna tells in the autumn of 2023. In the end, the managers calm themselves down, saying that they have very little subordinated capital, very few profit participation certificates. Most of it is in mortgages and in a few senior bonds, he explains. It has always been important for Signal Iduna to be engaged in the prestigious locations and thus be properly secured. At the end of the day, the argument in case something went wrong was: then you would own the Alsterhaus in Hamburg, the Oberpollinger in Munich, the Elbtower in Hamburg and the Kaufhof in Hohen Straße in Cologne."

"How exactly the vote on the Elbtower went, during which Signa received the approval for the construction of the high-rise, the red-green government in Hamburg prefers to remain silent, just as they gradually revealed the truth in the Cum-Ex investigations concerning the Hanseatic bank Warburg. Not even the question of whether Scholz attended the crucial meeting of the Hafencity GmbH was to be answered. It took the Bild newspaper to sue for the right to information. The result: Scholz was present. The Elbtower was designed by British star architect David Chipperfield, who has already realized the luxury resort "Villa Eden" on Lake Garda with Benko and built the Innsbrucker Kaufhaus Tyrol. For Hamburg, Chipperfield is designing an impressive counterpart to the Elbphilharmonie, a long, slightly step-like rising giant, which is supposed to surpass all dimensions of what has been built in Hamburg to date. Upon completion, the plan is for the Elbtower to be one of the tallest buildings in Germany. Regarding the investor, Signa from René Benko, which received the contract in a single-step selection process, Scholz had only words of praise on this festive day. It is "an outstanding real estate company" that has proven it can "handle very large projects." "Financially strong" with an "A+ rating" and a "very good reputation among reputable banks." A few years earlier, René Benko had taken over the Alsterhaus."