Luxembourg

"In 1949 he gets on a bicycle and every morning crosses the city to work at Johnson, which has been making medals in Porta Nuova for over a century. In the evening, he specializes at the Brera Academy, where the owner gives him the chance to grow, to refine his own drawing skills. Leonardo is in a hurry to move on. The rest is history: that of the orphan who for years becomes Italy's top taxpayer, only to later choose Monaco for residence and Luxembourg as the fiscal seat for his holding."

"Between Grande Stevens, who would not coincidentally become the lawyer for the main Italian industrial groups, and Michele Ferrero, there was a complete understanding. "He told me one of his secrets for the fine-tuning of products," remembers the lawyer. "He had found a supermarket in Luxembourg that agreed to put his new products on the shelf without the Ferrero brand. Some agents would wait outside and intercept the ladies who had bought those chocolates, offering them compensation to be interviewed. They would go to the offices and Michele, who was listening attentively from behind a wall, would suggest the right questions to the interviewers." And so, incognito, he understood why his new products were liked or not by the customers. Ferrero himself loves to enter supermarkets and try all the products that intrigue him or whose competition he fears. He wants to see them in person, touch them, taste them. In these raids, according to company legends, he is accompanied by an attendant who collects the wrappers of the sweets sampled on the spot and takes them to the checkout to pay."

"The multitude of companies that became apparent after the Signa collapse are mainly for tax reasons and are standard in the real estate business. Each project is contained within its own company, a real estate limited liability company. The tax rate on rental income is only 15 percent, and no trade tax is applied. Common too are so-called share deals, where the buyer does not acquire the property itself, but shares in the real estate company, legally circumventing the property transfer tax. The headquarters of these companies are often located in tax-advantaged countries like Luxembourg."

"Most of the shareholders did not have Benko's private foundation as a contracting partner, but the holding company. Roland Berger, who had invested in low percentages in the Signa companies Prime, Development, and Retail, managed to partially exit. Apparently, he pressed for payment from Benko early on and exchanged about half of his Prime shares for money. Berger benefited from the high market value of the shares, which had multiplied since his entry. However, at the end of the day, Berger will likely exit his Signa investment with a small double-digit million loss, Torsten Toeller will lose a triple-digit million amount, and in the fiscal year 2023, he will write off a book value of 196 million euros, which can be read in the annual financial statement of "Fressnapf" Luxembourg."

"Most of the shareholders did not have Benko's private foundation as a contracting partner, but the holding company. Roland Berger, who had invested in low percentages in the Signa companies Prime, Development, and Retail, managed to partially exit. Apparently, he pressed for payment from Benko early on and exchanged about half of his Prime shares for money. Berger benefited from the high market value of the shares, which had multiplied since his entry. However, at the end of the day, Berger will likely exit his Signa investment with a small double-digit million loss, Torsten Toeller will lose a triple-digit million amount, and in the fiscal year 2023, he will write off a book value of 196 million euros, which can be read in the annual financial statement of "Fressnapf" Luxembourg."