Property entrepreneur Kmenta enters personal insolvency

Property entrepreneur Mario Kmenta has entered personal insolvency proceedings, ORF reported on Tuesday, citing research by the Wirtschaftspresseagentur. The proceedings were opened on his own application on August 18 at the Baden District Court in Lower Austria.

Kmenta, who lived in Bregenz for many years and worked extensively in Vorarlberg, has reportedly moved his main residence to Kottingbrunn in Lower Austria. Debt restructuring proceedings are held at the district court responsible for the debtor’s main residence. The proceedings will not be administered by Kmenta himself.

According to the insolvency file, Kmenta has submitted a payment plan proposal. He wants to pay creditors 525,000 euros in a single payment within three months, equivalent to 16 percent of their claims. This would put the unsecured claims covered by the plan at about 3.28 million euros.

Insolvency law experts told the Wirtschaftspresseagentur that the proposed lump-sum payment could indicate that Kmenta will receive the money from a third party. His own assets are tied up in the insolvency proceedings and cannot be used for this purpose. The experts also considered it unlikely that an insolvent person could have monthly income sufficient to repay more than half a million euros within three months.

KSV1870 NÖ/Wien/Bgld said only unsecured claims were covered by the payment plan, meaning that total liabilities could be higher. The appointment of an insolvency administrator also pointed to a case of a certain financial scale or complexity. KSV1870 expects the proceedings to take a considerable amount of time.

Kmenta was already facing enforcement proceedings brought by Oberbank AG in early July, before the insolvency was opened, involving more than 500,000 euros. Documents seen by the Wirtschaftspresseagentur show that Bendura Bank AG in Liechtenstein also initiated enforcement proceedings against him in late July. The bank is seeking more than 991,000 euros.

Kmenta is or has been listed as a co-owner or shareholder in numerous companies and project companies, including the repeatedly insolvent Vienna property group Trivium. He has recently been removed from several positions, according to the federal digital official gazette.

He remains managing shareholder of Kmenta and Partner GmbH in Bregenz, founded in 2010, where he holds six percent of the shares. Until the end of 2022, he was the company’s sole owner. In December 2022, he sold 94 percent of his stake to Ingrid Kmenta, born in 1968, for one euro, according to the transfer agreement.

A few weeks before that sale, Kmenta and Partner Immobilienmakler GmbH was established at the same registered address in Bregenz. Ingrid Kmenta has since been its managing majority owner, while Mario Kmenta is not listed at the company. Unlike the older Kmenta and Partner GmbH, the newer estate agency does not hold stakes in other companies.