Lindt & Sprüngli

"competent. In Switzerland, Benko early wins over Ernst Tanner, who has made Lindt & Sprüngli a globally known chocolate brand. The Swiss family Eugster, who have made a lot of money with coffee machines and other household appliances, will finally become one of Benko's most important investors with a 10 percent stake in Signa Holding."

"After the conviction, private investors become even more important for him. When shipowner Economou wants to pull out in 2015, Benko brings two more investors into the holding: on one hand, the then Lindt & Sprüngli CEO Ernst Tanner, who is considered an impeccable businessman, and on the other hand, the Swiss Falcon Private Bank. It is indirectly state-owned by Abu Dhabi, does not enjoy the best reputation, and will soon have to answer allegations of money laundering."

"The company founder proved once again to be a skilled opinion maker – behind the scenes, but also in front of them. Thus, Benko regularly claimed to journalists, often unchallenged, that Signa operated with a high equity ratio of almost 50 percent. That was not entirely wrong, but nevertheless anything but right. Because, like other real estate conglomerates, Signa included financing with hybrid capital - namely mezzanine such as profit participation certificates; both are counted as equity on the balance sheet but come from external creditors. Therefore, the 20 to 30 percent of the capital actually provided by the shareholders was all the more important. But even this genuine equity capital, as it turned out at the latest after the bankruptcy at the end of 2023, was not really safe. For Benko had granted numerous investors the right to return their shares and be paid out at the then current rate. Roland Berger, Torsten Toeller, but also Swiss Lindt & Sprüngli Chairman of the Board Ernst Tanner and German logistics entrepreneur Klaus-Michael Kühne all had written agreements that could compel either René Benko's private foundation or parts of Signa to buy back their shares. And they were probably by far not the only ones."

"Torsten Toeller has traveled there, as well as other shareholders such as the Swiss coffee machine millionaire Arthur Eugster and Ernst Tanner, Chairman of the Board of Lindt & Sprüngli, who either attend themselves or are represented by family members, and the Arduini Clan, a Brazilian-Italian entrepreneur family that has mainly made their wealth with cement. The Austrian construction entrepreneur Hans Peter Haselsteiner (Strabag), who holds 10 percent of the holding, has sent his apologies. The shareholders want to know if René Benko and his Signa will survive the real estate crisis that is currently rolling towards Europe."