DUESSELDORF (Reuters) -More companies of European property and retail giant Signa are expected to file for insolvency in the near future, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.
Those moves would be a further turn for the worse for the embattled Austrian company that has become the biggest casualty so far of Europe’s property crash.
Several Signa companies have filed for insolvency in the days since the Signa group holding company filed its own separate insolvency application last week, and more will come, said the person speaking on condition of anonymity.
Last week’s insolvency filing by the Vienna-based holding company – with debts of around 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) – was a dramatic stumble in the conglomerate’s two-decade history that underscored dimming prospects for the broader property sector.
Signa Prime, an important division with holdings that include the Park Hyatt hotel in Vienna and the Elbtower skyscraper in Hamburg, is preparing an application for self-administrated insolvency, the Spiegel news magazine reported on Friday, citing unidentified sources.
An insolvency application is expected within the next two weeks, according to the report.
A Signa spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
($1 = 0.9274 euros)
(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi and Rachel More; Writing by Tom Sims; Editing by Sabine Wollrab and Mark Potter)
