A few hundred metres from the western border of Sz\u00e9kesfeh\u00e9rv\u00e1r, in an industrial area, there are four huge hangars. In mid-September, there wasn\u2019t much activity on the recently cobbled yard of the site, but according to company documents and people familiar with the location, a plastics manufacturing and processing business is being set up here.<\/p>\n
Entrepreneurs close to the Orb\u00e1n-family are getting into business on properties owned by the prime minister’s family<\/p>\n
On the specifically 1.3-hectare site, Energ\u00e9p Ltd., an energy and construction company is operating, which, since April this year, has included the production of various plastic products and waste recycling among its activities.<\/p>\n
Energ\u00e9p is owned by three individuals, two of whom are closely linked to one of Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s younger brothers, Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. One of the minority owners, Viktor Kov\u00e1cs, has family ties to the Prime Minister’s family: he\u2019s Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr\u2019s son-in-law. The majority owner of the company is G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi, an entrepreneur whose IT group has been winning government contracts<\/a>. Szentgy\u00f6rgyi and Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. are linked by their love of wrestling, and they have even watched football together in Felcs\u00fat<\/a>, a few steps away from Viktor Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n The site where the hangars now stand has belonged to the Orb\u00e1n family since 2015 (currently owned by the Prime Minister’s mother\u2019s and Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr.\u2019s joint company, Hah\u00f3t T\u0151zeg Ltd.). The two smaller properties next to the site were bought by Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n in 2018 and 2019.<\/p>\n Energ\u00e9p Ltd., based in a town called Szabadbatty\u00e1n, first came to the area in 2019, when it opened a branch office on a larger property owned by Hah\u00f3t T\u0151zeg Ltd., and then on two smaller estates of Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. (Companies tend to set up a branch office when they perform economic activity in a location further away from their headquarters.) According to company documents, Energ\u00e9p rents the land used as a branch from the owners.<\/p>\n We asked Szentgy\u00f6rgyi and Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr about the activity Energ\u00e9p is about to do, and how much it is paying for renting the properties of the Orb\u00e1n-family, but they did not answer our questions.<\/p>\n Energ\u00e9p’s CEO and minority owner, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Polg\u00e1r, told Direkt36 on phone that he did not know “where we get it from” that his company plans to engage in plastic production, but did not deny the information. When we pointed out that the company had recently expanded its activities with plastic production, he said that the company had a wide range of activities in addition to plastic production, including catering. “We might produce scones on the area as part of the catering activity,” he said. Energ\u00e9p’s activities do not include catering in its company documents though, but retail trade in bread, bakery and confectionery has indeed been listed since the company was founded in 2015.<\/p>\n The Energ\u00e9p branch office is not the first business link between Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr. and G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi. Another company, indirectly owned by Szentgy\u00f6rgyi, has opened a branch office in Zala County, also on the property of Hah\u00f3t T\u0151zeg Kft., owned by the Orb\u00e1n family<\/a>. Szentgy\u00f6rgyi’s company is allowed to operate this branch on the property “by way of a favour” which means free of charge.<\/p>\n Energ\u00e9p, a new entrant in the plastics business, was founded in 2015 and currently has only four employees. Its annual turnover exceeded 100 million forints (approx. \u20ac262 thousand) in both 2019 and 2020, and it has not yet run for public tenders.<\/p>\n The most important of G\u00e1bor Szentgy\u00f6rgyi’s companies is still IMG Solution Zrt., founded in 2009, which has been successful in several large public tenders in recent years: it has been a supplier to several universities, government agencies, hospitals and the National Tax Office (NAV) as well. (For a while, the department of priority public procurement at NAV was headed by a man who was a personal acquaintance of both Szentgy\u00f6rgyi and Gy\u0151z\u0151 Orb\u00e1n Jr<\/a>.) Between 2013 and 2018, the company was involved in thirteen framework agreements worth tens of billions of forints (approx. \u20ac26 million), from which it received orders worth a total of 6.2 billion forints (\u20ac16 million).<\/p>\n IMG’s performance has picked up in parallel with its success in public tenders, with revenues of 166 million forints (\u20ac432 thousand) in 2013 and 9.4 billion forints (\u20ac24 million) in 2019. The company transformed from a limited liability company into a private limited company last year and generated a profit of 1.3 billion forints (\u20ac3.4 million) on a turnover of 10.4 billion forints (\u20ac27 million). It has continued to be successful in public procurement: since the beginning of 2019, it has gotten into eight more framework agreements worth tens of billions of forints, and has also won orders from the Hungarian National Railways (M\u00c1V).<\/p>\nStill rocking in the IT business<\/h2>\n