Lőrinc Mészáros (born 24 February 1966) is a Hungarian billionaire businessman and former politician who was mayor of the village of Felcsút from 2011 to 2018. With an estimated wealth of 1,749 billion forints (US$5.8 billion) he is the richest person in Hungary. Several media outlets refer to him as an "oligarch".
Due to the perception that he owes his extreme wealth to his close ties to Fidesz and its leader Viktor Orbán, with whom he was childhood friends, Mészáros is one of the most controversial subjects of contemporary Hungarian social and political discourse. Since the 2010 Hungarian parliamentary election, in which Fidesz won a parliamentary supermajority sparking the Orbán era, Mészáros's wealth doubled annually and is regularly identified as Orbán's strawman. Mészáros acknowledged the significance of his relationship with Orbán, saying in 2017 that "[his] fortune is thanks to three factors: God, luck, and Viktor Orbán."
Early life and business Mészáros was born in Székesfehérvár on 24 February 1966. Like Orbán, he grew up in Felcsút, where they were childhood friends. He started his career there as a gas-fitter in the early 1990s. The company started to develop and secured important contracts in nearby settlements, working in residential parks and larger buildings. In the middle of the 2000s, however, the company began to receive fewer orders and lost most of its market share. By 2007, the company was operating at a loss.
Since Orbán's 2010 return to power, Mészáros has rapidly accumulated wealth. By 2013 he became the 88th richest Hungarian with assets, rising to 23.8 billion in 2016, and to 120 billion by 2017, making him the fifth-wealthiest Hungarian. According to a report by RTL Klub, in 2016 Mészáros's companies had, as a whole, a total public procurement revenue of .
Politics Mészáros won the local elections in Felcsút in 2011 representing the governing Fidesz–KDNP. After his election, Felcsút saw fast development, with several large state and EU funded projects (football stadium, touristic light railway, artificial lake) being realized. Mészáros also became president of the Felcsút New Generation Training Foundation, which was founded earlier by Orbán. The fortunes of Mészáros and its family companies continued to grow in 2018, winning public procurements worth of HUF259 billion, 93% of which came from the European Union. In April 2018, Mészáros retired as the Mayor of Felcsút "to solely concentrate on his economic interests".
Later business By May 2018, his and his wife's Konzum Private Equity Fund had traded at 280–300 billion Forint, making Mészáros the second richest man in the country. By March 2019 he became the 2057th wealthiest man on the planet according to Forbes. In the years between 2010 and 2019, he acquired several hotels and the second largest power plant of Hungary (Mátra Power Plant, providing about 15% of the country's electricity). He also acquired several radio stations, newspaper publishers, and the nationwide television channel Echo. These became part of his holding company, Opimus (later Opus Global Nyrt.), which grew into Hungary's biggest media empire.
In 2017, together with his longtime business partner László Szíjj, they acquired 81.5% of the Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank (MKB), the fourth-biggest commercial bank in Hungary. His name is associated with CIG Pannonia. His construction companies won bids in the two largest (state funded) infrastructure projects of the last five decades: the Paks-2 Nuclear Power Plant construction and the Budapest-Belgrade railway. Atlatszo.hu, an opposition news site, compiled a list of all of his companies. Year Wealth (billion HUF)Notable events20136.920147.720158.4The "G-day": Viktor Orbán cuts ties with Lajos Simicska, former economic ally.201623.8Purchase of Mediaworks Hungary and Echo TV.2017120.0Purchase of 49% share in the MKB Bank. Purchases in tourism and wineries around Lake Balaton.2018280.0Transfer of ownership of the entire media portfolio to the Central European Press and Media Foundation (KESMA) without financial compensation. Purchase of the Mátra Power Plant.2022480.02023660.020241241.820251749.1
Enrichment Mészáros is still a key player in Felcsút, and since 2010 he has become even richer than ever: in 2013 he was the 88th richest Hungarian with a wealth of 6.9 billion, which rose to 31st place by 2016, and 2017, already in 5th place with HUF 120 billion in assets. His assets started to grow sharply, mainly through public procurement after 2010, which his companies gained under unusual business conditions. In the meantime, the mayor has built a real company empire that includes a number of companies with different profiles, from the construction industry to agriculture to the local school buffet. Some of these companies are run by his children. Mészáros Foundation has on several occasions commissioned companies run by his children to do construction in Felcsút. According to the RTL Klub, in 2016 the companies of Mészáros were able to post a total revenue of HUF 225 billion from public procurement. The government related wealth is strengthened by the fact that on several occasions Mészáros's companies sent orders to the companies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's family in connection with the procurements, including Orbán's father, Orbán Győző, family businesses as well.
In the autumn of 2016, Opimus Press Zrt., with an unclear background close to Mészáros, acquired 100% of the shares of Mediaworks Hungary Zrt., the operator of the suspended Népszabadság publisher. Behind the transaction, several have speculated a political showdown after the paper previously reported embarrassing affairs to Fidesz. Mészáros, however, in an interview with Bors, denied that he had bought the paper and claimed that he did not have any shares in Opimus. He also denied the news that his confidant, Zoltán Csík, would be a member of the board. He had no opinion on the closure of the paper itself, but said the media was a "weird world" where character assassination attempts were being made against him. He added that he wanted to deal with his existing companies in the future and that he was a businessman, not a politician. On the other hand, it became public knowledge that he had bought Echo TV, stating that he "wanted a good TV" on which Fidesz could rely in the campaign, but denying that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had a say in the operation of the TV channel. He also said here that he was fine With Lajos Simicska, who had previously quarreled with Orbán, he claims that Simicska had previously helped him thrive in business. It was later revealed that Mészáros had bought from Tamás Gyárfás the building, which previously housed Nap TV complex of Angol Street, to move Echo TV there. The move took place in December 2017. On 3 March 2017, Mészáros acquired a 16.9 percent stake in Opimus Plc., which can be linked to the closure of Népszabadság. After the transaction, the company's share price began to rise spectacularly.
2017 On 30 March 2017, 444.hu and Hír TV visited Felcsút to participate in the extraordinary and public meeting of the representative body, but Mészáros did not want to be recorded at the meeting, so he wanted to exclude the cameras from the meeting and police to enforce this. However, under the current legislation, the press can attend and record the meeting, so that the correspondents could eventually stay. They also wanted to ask the mayor about his role in Opimus, but Mészáros did not answer. According to the Napi.hu April 2017 summary, Mészáros' wealth jumped 100 billion in one year, making him the fifth in the list of the richest Hungarians. Even in a year of unprecedented growth and wealth, other significant deals have been made with his companies:
In April, Mészáros Konzum Nyrt.'s company and, as a private individual, Mészáros's permanent business partner and friend, Gellért Jászai, bought one of the largest Balaton tourism companies, the former state-owned Balaton Tourist, with which significant Lake Balaton camping areas were acquired. The previous owners were hiding behind a Luxembourg company, but Jászai had been among the owners of the group for some time in the 2000s. The purchase price was not disclosed. As the largest tourism company in the area, its sales in 2016 were more than HUF 1.7 billion. Owned Visonta Projekt Kft. Investment of HUF 30 billion in 2018 builds Visonta first wheat starch factory in Hungary. For this, the company received HUF 6.2 billion from the Hungarian state, and Eximbank and MKB Bank also provided loans to it, although Visonta did not earn a penny in the year of its establishment or in 2016, both year, it submitted a negative report. According to Mihály Varga, Minister of National Economy, with the establishment of the new plant, the production of high value-added products will increase, which will open up new market opportunities both at home and abroad. He made in the second largest power plant in the country, the Mátra Power Plant, a takeover bid for a 73% stake, which was completed by December. By the beginning of June, Mészáros and his company bought 49% of MKB Bank. Thus, the Consum Investment Fund Manager of Mészáros took over the management of the private equity fund, which is the 45% owner of MKB Bank. In July, the company of Mészáros and his wife bought a commercial radio called Part FM broadcasting in the Balaton area. Then, on 25 July, Bloomberg Businessweek published an article about Mészáros analyzing the mayor's wealth, after his data was the world's fastest-growing listed company, and its share price had jumped fiftyfold since the beginning of the year. In August, it was revealed that Mészáros and his family OTP were able to own land through loans, while also significantly lending to OTP Mészáros companies. At the same time, through his interest in MKB Bank, Mészáros himself lent partly to his own companies and partly to persons close to other politicians. By September, in addition to the previous five, three more winery companies had joined Mészáros. The new compositions are from Badacsonyi Pincészet Kft., Tihanyi Borászati Kft. And Tihany-Vin Kft. From 3 October, the Budapest Stock Exchange shares of Opus Global Plc., Formerly called Opimus, owned by Mészáros, were traded on (BUX) in the Premium category. According to Opus's first half-year report from BUX in September 2016, its sales jumped more than fivefold to HUF 17.4 billion, and after a loss of 767 million last year, its profits exceeded two billion. After obtaining information through a lawsuit on 5 October, it was revealed that Erzsébet Szolgáltató Kft. had spent a total of more than half a billion forints on various companies in Mészáros since 2014, which were thus the biggest winners of the state sponsored camping. At the end of October, one of Mészáros's companies partially won the tender for the construction of Bridge in Komárom Danube, despite the fact that a cheaper Slovak offer had been received. According to the National Infrastructure Development Ltd. , the Italian-Slovak consortium could not answer certain additional questions, but according to the consortium, satisfactory answers were given. By November, according to the Hungarian edition of Forbes, Mészáros was ranked 8th on the list of the richest Hungarians with 105 billion. On 24 November, Mészáros és Mészáros Kft. won two public procurements worth more than HUF 13 billion in pairs with other companies, which deal with the development of wastewater treatment plants and the construction of flood protection facilities. In December, the Mátra Power Plant was officially acquired by Mészáros. May 2018, the contractor's daughter, Beatrix Mészáros, became chairman of the power plant's supervisory board.