IMG Solution was founded in 2009 by G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi and his two partners. Sources familiar with the company said that all three of them had been working for Bravogroup, a major player in the IT market when they set up their own company.<\/p>\n
From the very beginning, Szentgy\u00f6rgyi has been the sole director of the company. Even at Bravogroup, he stood out with his ambitious approach. \u201cHe is hardworking and pushy, but if he promised something he always kept it,\u201d one of his former colleagues at Bravogroup described him.<\/p>\n
In the first years of IMG Solution, Szentgy\u00f6rgyi kept his job at Bravogroup as well, but he quit when his own company started to grow. The growth began after IMG Solution had bidden successfully for several big state tenders.<\/p>\n
We can only do this work if we have supporters.
\nBecome a supporting member now!<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\nIn general, it is decided in several rounds which companies can provide IT and office technology products to government agencies and other state institutions. First, the Procurement and Supply Directorate selects companies, often dozens of them, through a procurement. The directorate signs a framework contract with the selected companies. Then the individual state agencies can order products, like laptops or photocopy machines, exclusively from these companies. For example, if the National Tax Authority wants to buy new computers, it has to solicit offers from the companies in the framework contract and will choose one of them.<\/p>\n
IMG Solution got its first framework contract in September 2013. It was a 44-billion-forint (142.8 million euros) framework contract for \u201ccomputer systems and related services.\u201d The company has become a participant of 8 similar framework contracts since then. Four of these were finalized last year, including an 80-billion-forint (260 million euros) contract for providing IT devices. The Procurement and Supply Directorate did not respond to questions about the amount of revenue IMG Solution actually received through these framework contracts and the company did not answer these questions either.<\/p>\n
IMG received state contracts outside the frameworks as well, records show. Their total value is more than 600 million forints (1.95 million euros) and they include contracts with hospitals, the Hungarian National Bank, and the Hungarian National Railway.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/direkt36.exot.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Orba\u0301n_Gyo\u030bzo\u030b_KDNP_flickr.jpg\")
Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. \/ Source: KDNP Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n
With contracts under its belt, IMG Solution has skyrocketed. While in the first years of its operation the company made only a few tens of millions of forints, in 2013 its revenue was 166 million forints (539 thousand euros), which jumped to 4.7 billion (15.2 million euros) in 2015. The following year the revenue went down (it was 3.2 billion forints or 10.3 million euros) but the overall growth stood out in the market.<\/p>\n
Direkt36 has analysed the financial data of more than 200 companies, which were part of framework contracts alongside IMG Solution. Of these firms, only two produced bigger growth in the same period. One of them is I-Cell Zrt., whose rise can be explained by the fact that in 2013 they introduced a now widely used toll system for trucks. The other company with outstanding growth is Pegasus Informatikai Kft., which is also owned by G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi (he bought the company in March 2017.) This firm, however, grew much more modestly: its revenue in 2012 was 191 thousand forints (620 euros), and it went up to 15 million forints (48.7 thousand euros) by 2016.<\/p>\n
News from the state sector<\/h3>\n
Simultaneously with IMG Solution\u2019s rise, speculations began to circulate about its alleged links to Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. Several sources told Direkt36 that they had heard about this from their partners in the state sector. The sources, who are with companies that had been working for state agencies for years, said that around 2013 their public-sector partners told them that a new player, IMG Solution, appeared on the market and, to their knowledge, it is connected to the prime minister\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard this from at least ten state sources,\u201d said an office technology company\u2019s former senior employee. A major IT company\u2019s executive told Direkt36 that he got the information from high-level people at a state agency for which they had been working for years. A third executive gave a similar account on how he heard about IMG Solution\u2019s connection.<\/p>\n
The wrestling connection<\/strong><\/h3>\nAlthough the market sources were informed through private talks that are difficult to verify, there is more concrete proof for the connection between G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi and Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. At his previous workplace, Bravogroup, Szentgy\u00f6rgyi told his colleagues that Orb\u00e1n is among his acquaintances. \u201cHe said that he knows him well,\u201d recalled a company source, who said that Szentgy\u00f6rgyi also mentioned that they got to know each other through wrestling.<\/p>\n
What clearly connects the two people is the NIK\u00c9 Sports Association. Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. is the honorary president of the organization, which was founded in 2009 and has a wrestling section along with football and handball. According to interviews with Orb\u00e1n, he went to wrestling trainings as a teenager but then chose to focus on his studies, and returned to the sport only as an adult. \u201cI was close to my 35th<\/sup> birthday when I joined the seniors,\u201d he told Karfiolf\u00fcl, a magazine dedicated to wrestling, in 2015. He said in the interview that first he won a national championship then later he received a gold medal at a European tournament as well.<\/p>\nDo you have an important story?
\nShare it with us on secure channels!<\/a><\/h2>\nGy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. appeared at several events organized by NIK\u00c9. He represented the association at a 2016 state event, where even deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semj\u00e9n gave aspeech.<\/p>\n
G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi is a member of NIK\u00c9 and participated in several of its assemblies, records found by Direkt36 in the Court of Kaposv\u00e1r, where the association is registered, show.<\/p>\n
Szentgy\u00f6rgyi did not respond to questions about his involvement in the association. However, a person who knows Szentgy\u00f6rgyi recognized him in a photo, which appeared in a story about a foreign trip of NIK\u00c9\u2019s delegation. During the 2011 trip, the representatives of NIK\u00c9 visited K\u00e1rp\u00e1talja, a part of Ukraine with a large number of ethnic Hungarians, to build partnerships. According to local news reports, there was a third person in the delegation in addition to Szentgy\u00f6rgyi and Vilmos Balogh, the head of NIK\u00c9. It was Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr.<\/p>\n
We asked Orb\u00e1n and Szentgy\u00f6rgyi whether they had talked about IMG Solution during this trip or any other time, but neither of them answered this and our other questions.<\/p>\n
Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. \/ Source: KDNP Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n
With contracts under its belt, IMG Solution has skyrocketed. While in the first years of its operation the company made only a few tens of millions of forints, in 2013 its revenue was 166 million forints (539 thousand euros), which jumped to 4.7 billion (15.2 million euros) in 2015. The following year the revenue went down (it was 3.2 billion forints or 10.3 million euros) but the overall growth stood out in the market.<\/p>\n
Direkt36 has analysed the financial data of more than 200 companies, which were part of framework contracts alongside IMG Solution. Of these firms, only two produced bigger growth in the same period. One of them is I-Cell Zrt., whose rise can be explained by the fact that in 2013 they introduced a now widely used toll system for trucks. The other company with outstanding growth is Pegasus Informatikai Kft., which is also owned by G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi (he bought the company in March 2017.) This firm, however, grew much more modestly: its revenue in 2012 was 191 thousand forints (620 euros), and it went up to 15 million forints (48.7 thousand euros) by 2016.<\/p>\n
News from the state sector<\/h3>\n
Simultaneously with IMG Solution\u2019s rise, speculations began to circulate about its alleged links to Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. Several sources told Direkt36 that they had heard about this from their partners in the state sector. The sources, who are with companies that had been working for state agencies for years, said that around 2013 their public-sector partners told them that a new player, IMG Solution, appeared on the market and, to their knowledge, it is connected to the prime minister\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard this from at least ten state sources,\u201d said an office technology company\u2019s former senior employee. A major IT company\u2019s executive told Direkt36 that he got the information from high-level people at a state agency for which they had been working for years. A third executive gave a similar account on how he heard about IMG Solution\u2019s connection.<\/p>\n