Cevdet Caner is a Kurdish-Austrian real estate entrepreneur. He is chief executive of Aggregate Holdings.[1] He is resident in Monaco.[2]
Early life and education
Caner is the youngest of seven children of immigrants from Turkey. He grew up in Linz,[3] where he attended high school and graduated in 1994.[4]
Caner was active in youth politics, serving as president of the Socialist Youth Austria (SJÖ) in Linz. He founded his first company, CLC, while studying business administration.[5] He left university without a degree after starting the company.[6][7]
Career
In 1997, Caner founded Call & Logistik Center GesmbH (CLC) and became its managing director.[5][6] In 2001, he listed CLC on the Vienna Stock Exchange with a turnover of EUR 34 million.[8] CLC then took over the larger call centre group Camelot.[9] Caner sold his shares and left the company three years later.[6] By 2004, CLC was bankrupt and ceased operations shortly afterwards.[3][10]
In 2005, Cevdet Caner founded the real estate holding company Level One, registered on the Channel Island of Jersey.[6] By 2008, the portfolio had grown to around 28,000 residential units[7] with a total value of 1.85 billion euros.[6]Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland and other British firms invested into Level One.[11] Credit Suisse, the largest lender, approved a total of €1.3 billion in loans to Level One, and also served as leading bank for the IPO planned for March 2007.[11] This IPO was postponed, and the second attempt was foiled by the subprime crisis.[11] In 2008, the real estate group filed for bankruptcy for its German property companies.[12] Around 20,000 apartments and 500 commercial properties, primarily in Berlin and eastern Germany, were affected. With debts of EUR 1.5 billion, Level One is considered Germany's largest real estate bankruptcy after Jürgen Schneider, whose bank debts amounted to DM 6 billion in 1994.[13][7] Caner's £20 million London property was repossessed in 2009, the largest property repossession in British history at that time.[5]
On 19 November 2018, a trial against Caner and five other defendants began in Vienna. He was accused of aggravated commercial fraud, fraudulent bankruptcy and money laundering.[10][14] In 2020, he was acquitted of all charges.[15]
In 2022, Caner became shareholder and CEO of Aggregate Holdings SA,[1][16] one of Adler Group's largest shareholders.[17] The extent of Caner's influence within the Adler Group was questioned after conflicting reports about his role within the group.[18][15]
