Geiwitz

"In the end, the winners and losers of the Galeria bankruptcies during and shortly after the coronavirus pandemic become clearly apparent. In the first bankruptcy proceedings, 81.4 million Euros are incurred for consulting fees, 41.5 million of which were expenses for the protective shield procedure, and 39.9 million flowed in the subsequent bankruptcy proceedings. A large part of that is collected by Geiwitz and his people, and in the second process, it is around 52 million. Nearly ten thousand jobs are lost. And the fool is undoubtedly the state. In total, two loans amounting to 680 million euros are being provided by the Economic Stabilization Fund for Galeria – amid considerable doubts from some actors and also criticism from the public. Why invest money in department stores when time has passed them by and fewer and fewer customers are wandering into the largely deserted floors manned by salespeople? Why give money to Benko and his Signa when he continues to report high profits for his real estate and in the crisis year of 2020 delighted his investors in the Prime with distributions of more than 200 million euros?"

"Later, the works councils of the department store chain will accuse Geiwitz of not having restructured in the interest of Galeria, but for Signa. While most landlords of the Galeria buildings granted considerable rent reductions, the contracts with Signa as a landlord remained unaffected. Geiwitz confirmed to several participants that he had no leeway. Benko had been very strict. Because a correction of the rents downwards would have immediately triggered value adjustments in the properties of Signa - and thus probably turned the previously reported profits into losses."