Selfridges co-owner’s luxury Alpine villa targeted in row over unpaid taxes: reports
Austrian real estate tycoon Rene Benko, the co-owner of Selfridges, faces losing his Alpine home after tax authorities placed a legal claim on the property as they attempt to recover years of allegedly unpaid taxes.
Officials have placed a lien worth some €12m (£9.5m) on the property, near Innsbruck, where Benko and his family reportedly live.
State broadcaster ORF first reported the news.
The claim represents eight years of allegedly unpaid sales taxes between 2016 and 2023, according to official documents seen by Bloomberg.
According to Austrian newspaper Heute, the property is owned by a company controlled by a family trust named after Benko’s daughter, which also manages his yacht, private jet and art collection.
A spokesman for the foundation rejected allegations Benko failed to pay taxes.
They told Bloomberg that taxes on the property had already been paid and then refunded, with the demand that the owner re-pay value-added taxes having “no legal basis.”
Authorities have not publicly commented on why they placed a lien on the villa.
Benko is the founder of the property empire Signa Group, which was declared insolvent in November. Shareholders had ousted him earlier that month.
Signa, alongside the wider European property sector, struggled last year with soaring borrowing costs and falling valuations and is in the midst of a major restructuring of its many shell companies.
Signa acquired Selfridges last year in a £4bn joint deal with Thai conglomerate Central Group which put roughly £1.7bn in debt on the two firms
Signa lost majority ownership of Selfridges in November after Central Group raised its stake in the company.
However, it still has a 50 per cent stake in Selfridges’ property company, including its flagship Oxford Street department store.