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Elbtower in Hamburg: Is the investor solution now coming?

Photo: Marcus Brandt/dpa

There is movement in the debacle surrounding the Hamburg Elbtower, which was affected by the construction freeze.

The buyer of the Elbtower property in Hamburg is insolvent.

As the Hanseatic city announced, Elbtower Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG has filed an application to open insolvency proceedings.

It is the next bankruptcy in the Signa conglomerate of the Austrian entrepreneur René Benko.

Signa Prime Selection, which is responsible for the Elbtower, had already applied for self-administered restructuring proceedings at the Vienna Commercial Court in December.

Elbtower Immobilien GmbH & Co. KG is an indirect subsidiary of Signa Prime.

This clears the way for the city of Hamburg to work out a rescue plan with investors.

The city can “now assert its right of repurchase secured by the purchase agreement as well as the assumption of all planning and construction contracts,” said city development senator Karen Pein.

"The city will also secure its rights in the insolvency proceedings and will contact the provisional insolvency administrator immediately after appointing him." Mayor Peter Tschentscher made similar statements in December.

The Elbtower is intended to be the crowning glory of Hamburg's HafenCity in the east, in a sense as a counterpart to the Elbphilharmonie in the far west.

The third tallest building in Germany, designed by London star architect David Chipperfield, will house, among other things, offices, shops, galleries, restaurants and a viewing platform on the 55th floor.

Planned completion and total costs so far: 2025 for around 950 million euros.

But the responsible building contractor had stopped work since the end of October.

He accused Signa of not paying bills.

The ruined building has been plaguing people in the Hanseatic city ever since.

City refers to private sector

The city now emphasized that the Elbtower is a private-sector project "and it is expected that a private-sector solution for the prompt resumption of construction work will be found as part of the insolvency proceedings."

However, the repurchase right enables the “city to take control of the project if no viable solution is found.”

In mid-December, logistics billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne tried to formulate conditions for the Hanseatic city for a possible entry.

Kühne is involved in Signa Prime.

In the past, he had long struggled with the monumental building in Hamburg's HafenCity.

At the time, he considered Benko's idea to be unsuitable for the Hanseatic city.

Now he's obviously taken a liking to it, at least he wants to get involved himself now.

While Kühne recently had a dispute with the city, which sold parts of the port in October to a competitor of Hapag-Lloyd, where Kühne is a major shareholder, in the Elbtower case he could now show himself to be the savior of the project and his investment.

kko/kig