German insurers including Munich Re and Allianz have amassed more than €3bn of exposure to Signa, the struggling property empire owned by real estate billionaire René Benko.
Documents reveal that the network of firms in the group not only borrowed from banks including Julius Baer and UniCredit, but also relied heavily on funding from more than half a dozen insurers.
Signa Holding, the central company in the group that co-owns Selfridges in London, the Chrysler Building in New York and KaDeWe in Berlin, filed for administration last month. The company had built up €5bn in debt by the end of September, the majority of it during the first nine months of this year.
