The Crisis at Signa, Owner of NY’s Chrysler Building: QuickTake

Austrian entrepreneur Rene Benko’s property empire is slipping out of his hands as other shareholders push to restructure the business. His Signa Holding GmbH, the part-owner of London’s Selfridges department store and New York’s Chrysler building, is the latest casualty of a real estate crisis triggered by the end of near-zero interest rates and declining demand for office space. The group’s murky business structure and big appetite for cash made it especially vulnerable when the going got tough.

1. Why is Signa in trouble?

High school dropout Benko convinced some of Europe’s wealthiest investors to bankroll his company, but ...