Cigna Development was established in 2014 and deals in development of real estate projects. It is located in Innsbruck. Gross asset value (GAV) at the end of 2022 is around 2.8 billion euros, according to Hegard Weinhofer from Creditreform.
According to Creditreform, highlights include properties such as Vienna Twentytwo, Donnamarina Tower, Andas Vienna am Belvedere, Berliner Bremsenwerk and Flugerhof in Hamburg. The real estate portfolio comprises a total of 39 projects and the company is directly and indirectly involved in 290 companies. About 200 borrowers and 13 employees were affected. KSV1870 and Creditreform value assets of around 296 million euros. According to KSV1870 and AKV, these are offset by liabilities of around 1.2 billion euros. According to Creditreform, the book value of the loans is 1.3 billion euros.
Further bankruptcy of Cigna
The Cigna empire continues to crumble. Cigna Prime Choice's bankruptcy was announced Thursday, a day after Cigna Development Choice filed for bankruptcy.
According to its own statements, the company follows a “buy – develop – sell” strategy. In order not to compete with now-bankrupt sister company Signa Prime, Premium is moving away from city center locations and focusing on real estate development projects in prime locations.
Primary bankruptcy is an “overwhelming task.”
Cigna Prime Selection AG filed for bankruptcy on Thursday. According to the Credit Protection Society (KSV) since 1870, the bankruptcy of the largest operating subsidiary in the corporate network of Tyrolean real estate investor René Benko would be “a truly difficult task”.
Cigna Prime's portfolio includes the most important properties owned by Benco's corporate networks, including the Lamar department store in Vienna's Golden Quarter and under construction on Mariahilfer Straße in Vienna, the Gädewei in Berlin and the Elbtower project in Hamburg. for weeks.
“The objective is to continue operational business activities in an orderly manner within the framework of self-management and sustainable restructuring of the company,” Cigna announced in a broadcast when it filed for bankruptcy at the Vienna Commercial Court.
Cigna Prime: Liabilities over four billion euros
According to experts, the extent to which the plan can be implemented will be clear only in the next few weeks. The first step was taken with the opening of bankruptcy proceedings by the Vienna Commercial Court on Thursday evening. Creditor protection association Creditreform has announced that Norbert Abel has been appointed insolvency administrator – with the first vote on the restructuring plan expected to take place on March 18.
Creditreform and AKV put Cigna Prime's liabilities at around 4.5 billion euros, with KSV1870 writing 4.3 billion euros. According to KSV information, “clarification of mutual obligations and responsibilities within the Cigna group” is still necessary. According to KSV, this too “should be intensively studied in the next few weeks”.
What is left of the Cigna Prime portfolio will become clear later. According to the KSV release, the company's current assets, among others, will be sold during the bankruptcy proceedings. In the short term, Prime needs bridging funding of between 300 and 500 million euros, it says.
The new biggest bankruptcy in Austria
Insolvent companies owned by real estate investor Benco recently ranked first, second and fifth among the biggest bankruptcies in Austrian economic history by liabilities within a few weeks.
For ten years, i.e. since 2013, Alpine Pav has been in first place with loans of 3.2 billion euros. At the end of November, Cigna Holding topped this amount with five billion euros. On Thursday, Cigna Prime came in second with 4.5 billion euros in liabilities. Together, the largest Cigna companies have accumulated loans in the double-digit billion range.
