This article is adapted from the business magazine Capital and is available here for ten days. Afterwards it will only be available to read at www.capital.de. Like stern, Capital belongs to RTL Deutschland.

In the Signa corporate world, they were regularly sent through the ranks of management. From managing director to managing director. From accounting to controlling. Right up to the office of the founder and decades-long mastermind. Custom-made data sheets in Excel format. These files played a key role until the late autumn of Signa. Meetings and conference calls were scheduled at regular intervals to discuss these Excel spreadsheets. Society for society. One after the other. With more than a thousand companies, this represents no small effort.

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