Jobst Kayser-Eichberg, who died in 2023, was once the boss of Sedlmayr AG. picture alliance / dpa | Frank Mächler Getty images/Bilanol | Collage: Zoe Janser
The Munich Sedlmayr Group – it was once known for its Spaten-Franziskaner brewery. However, the entrepreneur Jobst Kayser-Eichberg, who died in 2023 and who received nicknames such as “Beer Baron” and “Beer Billionaire of Munich” for his successes, sold the beverage division in the early 2000s and made Sedlmayr AG one of the big players on the German market Real estate market.
Sedlmayr AG operates hundreds of construction projects in Munich and Berlin through its investment company Sedlmayr & Co. Projektentwicklungs GmbH and its subsidiary SPG Berlin. But as Business Insider reported last week, business is not going well: the billion-dollar company had to make a value adjustment of 42 million euros for its Berlin portfolio. Apparently because of the negative market development.
But according to insiders, a dubious business partner of Kayser-Eichberg could also be responsible: Till-Oliver Kalähne. The otherwise far-sighted Sedlmayr patriarch Kayser-Eichberg put his Berlin real estate business in his hands in 2016. Till-Oliver Kalähne became managing director of the Sedlmayr subsidiary SPG Berlin. In this way, Kalähne became, so to speak, the Berlin governor of Kayser-Eichberg and at the same time was allowed to continue running his company BoB Immobilienkonzepte, which even entered into a joint venture with Sedlmayr’s SPG Berlin.
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As Business Insider exclusively reported, many of the projects Kalähne is responsible for have been progressing slowly or not at all for years. Where luxurious townhouses, apartments and hotels are to be built, all that has been seen for a long time is wasteland. Nevertheless, the projects cost the Sedlmayr Group a lot of money.
New research from Business Insider now shows in detail how Kalähnen made the Sedlmayr Group pay millions for construction work that was never carried out and for security companies that were apparently supposed to guard empty sandy areas. For the individual construction projects, Kalähne sometimes founded special project companies with which he participated in the projects as a service provider – he transferred millions of euros to them for alleged planning work and commissions.