{"id":96904,"date":"2023-02-15T09:39:37","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T09:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/45581600-883d-4dd3-8d81-d66f529eef4d"},"modified":"2023-02-15T09:39:37","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T09:39:37","slug":"deutsche-bank-cuts-ties-with-selfridges-co-owner-rene-benko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/?p=96904","title":{"rendered":"Deutsche Bank cuts ties with Selfridges co-owner Ren\u00e9 Benko"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deutsche Bank has cut ties to one of Europe\u2019s most successful property developers over concerns about his involvement in a sprawling corruption investigation. <\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s biggest lender decided late last year to end its business relationship with Ren\u00e9 Benko, the Austrian real estate billionaire who co-owns Selfridges in London, the Chrysler Building in New York and German department store, KaDeWe, according to three people with close knowledge of Benko\u2019s financial affairs.<\/p>\n

The only banking relationship Deutsche has retained with Benko\u2019s \u20ac24bn property empire is with German department store Galeria Kaufhof, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October, the people said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writing was on the wall,\u201d said one person close to Benko\u2019s property business, Signa Group.<\/p>\n

In October, Benko<\/a> was named by prosecutors as a suspect in a long-running corruption investigation in Austria that has ensnared prominent businessmen and politicians. The probe led to the resignation of the country\u2019s chancellor Sebastian Kurz, a key ally of Benko, in 2021. <\/p>\n

Benko\u2019s involvement in the case became public after police raided Signa\u2019s headquarters in Innsbruck. <\/p>\n

No charges have been made against Signa Group<\/a> or Benko, and both have denied any wrongdoing in relation to the investigation.<\/p>\n

Some of the individuals named in the probe have privately accused prosecutors of targeting figures close to Austria\u2019s ruling conservative People\u2019s party for political reasons.<\/p>\n

Benko was cleared of wrongdoing in a separate bribery probe against him and other property developers last month. <\/p>\n

Deutsche Bank said it did \u201cnot comment on actual or potential client relationships\u201d.<\/p>\n

A lawyer for Signa Group said that the company had \u201cno existing loans, no credit business or investment banking business with Deutsche Bank and is not in talks with Deutsche Bank about this\u201d. Deutsche Bank was not the group\u2019s principal bank, he added.<\/p>\n

Deutsche Bank has nevertheless provided commercial services to Signa entities in the past and has played a role in helping to advise and finance the group. Deutsche was the joint bookrunner for a $300mn green bond issued by Signa in 2021, for example, and provided banking services to Benko personally. <\/p>\n

The bank is believed to have kept Galeria Kaufhof as a client because it judged it would be politically difficult to break ties with Germany\u2019s largest department store chain in the middle of a restructuring, people familiar with the details said.<\/p>\n

The move to sever ties with Benko comes as Deutsche Bank seeks to reduce its exposure to clients that might come with reputational risk. <\/p>\n

Last year, it ditched Hertha Berlin<\/a> as a client over the Bundesliga football club\u2019s links to financier Lars Windhorst, after the Financial Times reported that Windhorst was under investigation<\/a> for potential violations of the country\u2019s banking act.<\/p>\n

Windhorst and Hertha Berlin declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deutsche Bank has cut ties to one of Europe\u2019s most successful property developers over concerns about his involvement in a sprawling corruption investigation. Germany\u2019s biggest lender decided late last year to end its business relationship with Ren\u00e9 Benko, the Austrian real estate billionaire who co-owns Selfridges in London, the Chrysler Building in New York and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessnewsbox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}