Document reveals Mészáros company as general contractor of Orbán family estate

Átlátszó uncovered a document that reveals Mészáros Lőrinc’s family company, Fejér-B.Á.L. being the general contractor constructing the opulent Orbán family estate at Hatvanpuszta. The document also shows a subcontractor who pleaded guilty in a previous corruption case involving public funds.

Hatvanpuszta, a former Habsburg family estate next to Viktor Orbán’s hometown of Felcsút has come under the Orbán family’s possession in 2011, who started building a compound surpassing even the former royal mansion. The construction has been largely done in secret, and on paper, only involves private money and private companies. However, many question how Viktor Orbán’s father, Győző Orbán senior, could afford the construction, even from the billions of HUFs of revenue his mining company makes on public contracts.

In the end of August, Ákos Hadházy, an independent MP published a video from inside of the Hatvanpuszta estate, which revealed a hint about the companies and possible source of funding behind the secretive project. Hadházy’s video shows the inside of the complex. Next to the newly planted park and large buildings capable of hosting large gatherings, viewers can see construction equipment with the logo of Fejér B.Á.L., a company belonging to the family of Lőrinc Mészáros (B.Á.L. are the initials of Mészáros’s children, who are also owners of the company).

Mészáros, the country’s richest man, is a childhood friend of the prime minister. They still maintain a relationship today, most recently meeting during their August vacation in a small village on a Croatian island.

Fejér B.Á.L. Zrt. was covered many times by Átlátszó since 2017. At that time, we wrote that the sales revenue of the company, which was registered barely two years ago, had already exceeded 3 billion HUF (7.694 million EUR), tripling its income in one year.

Unsurprisingly, this was achieved thanks to public procurements.

Fejér-B.Á.L. Zrt. won two large state tenders in 2016, they built a school in Dunakeszi together with Attila Paár’s West Hungária Bau for 2.94 billion HUF (7.545 million EUR), and they started the renovation of the National Riding School for 2.8 billion HUF (7.185 million EUR).

Fejér B.Á.L.’s equipment at Hatvanpuszta seen on photo published by Ákos Hadházy

The success streak continued in the following years, Fejér B.Á.L. won tenders to build, among other things, a film studio and a stadium for the Budapest Athletics World Championship. By 2022, its sales revenue exceeded 65 billion HUF (166.79 million EUR). At that time, Fejér-B.Á.L. built the MTK Football Youth Training Center together with its co-owned EURO GENERÁL Építő és Szolgáltató Zrt. This investment was also given a status of special importance by the government, thus the builders could obtain building permits and circumvent certain rules.

Although Fejér-B.Á.L. has received less public money since the 2022 elections, they have not been left without public procurement in recent years. In 2023, they recorded revenue of 47.1 billion HUF (120.88 million EUR) and 40.5 billion HUF (103.95 million EUR) in 2024, and this year they won the contract in a consortium to transform the new educational institution of the Mathias Corvinus Collegium Foundation (MCC) in Pécs, which costs 8.9 billion HUF (22.84 million EUR).

Leak on a third-party list

A week later, one of Átlátszó’s readers shared with us a reference list that was publicly available on the internet. The list was published by a company called H.R. Profix Konzol Kft. on its own website. The company’s main profile is the production and distribution of fixing systems for facade tiles. One of the entries for 2022 states: “Estate – Hatvanpuszta 2022 Surface: 110 m2 stone slab covering”.

The list names Fejér B.Á.L. as the general contractor of the entire Hatvanpuszta project.

According to Átlátszó’s sources, H.R. Profix Konzol Kft. was only indirectly involved in the construction in Hatvanpuszta, selling material to the constructors. The company owns a permits and quality certifications, for which they have to keep a list of all the companies and construction projects it supplies elements for – the reference list was likely made by copying this list, including the details of the Hatvanpuszta investment.

The document also lists Art1st Design Studio Kft. as the projects’ designer, comfiring the involvement of Dániel Taraczky, who was listed as an architect in previously released Hatvanpuszta Documents. Soon after Taraczky got involved with the Orbán family mansion, his company won billions of HUFs at public procurement tenders: according to the HVG article, between 2022 and 2024, it recieved at least 5.88 billion HUF (15.09 million EUR) of public funding. We reached out to Taraczky by email, asking him what work the company had done in Hatvanpuszta and at what price. Dániel Taraczky replied that,

“I cannot comment on unpublished or ongoing work due to my contractual obligations, please inquire through the communication channels of the builders.”

We did this, but we did not receive any answers from them either.

Indicted for corrupting, still getting taxpayers’ money

Another interesting detail on the list is the company listed as a contractor, Gerecse House Kft. as it was also a part of the criminal case against István Boldog, a Fidesz MP for accepting bribes. According to the indictment, Boldog and his co-conspirators manipulated public procurement tenders, and accepted kickbacks from the winning companies. One of these companies was Gerecse House, which was also listed as a contractor in Hatvanpuszta.

According to 444’s reporting at the time,

the head of Gerecse House, István G. was one of th defendants in the case and partially admitted guilt.

However, it seems that the legal issues did not put a stop to his career: according to the Opten company database, he has been the company’s CEO continuously since 2013. The lawsuit did not wipe out the company’s business results either; in 2022, it even surpassed the previous year’s results, posting sales of 1.251 billion HUF (3.21 million EUR), but it also closed last year with a respectable amount of over half a billion HUF (1.28 million EUR).

Moreover, according to the reference list, Gerecse House has also recently received orders for several other Fejér-B.Á.L. projects.

In 2021, the Biatorbágy elementary school (in the same town the headquarters of Gerecse House is located), the Felcsút sports hotel and the Érd district court are listed as projects where the general contractors were Mészáros and the contractors were István G. This was followed in 2022 by another phase of the Biatorbágy school and Hatvanpuszta.

Statue of Ferenc Puskás in Felcsút, with the Puskás Academy building in the background (source: Gerecse House Kft.’s website)

Gerecse House’s website shows that the company performs general construction and specializes in cladding. The page boasts a photo of the newly renovated ELTE (Budapest university) campus, which is also listed on the H.R. Profix Konzol reference list as a Gerecse House project, as well as a photo at the Felcsút football academy, another pet project of Viktor Orbán.

Who foots the bill?

Fejér-B.Á.L Zrt. was also named the general contractor at Hatvanpuszta by a Hungarian RFE/RL investigation. The portal also wrote that, according to its sources, Fejér-B.Á.L. not only acted as a contractor, but it is also conceivable that it covered a “significant part” of the investment costs itself. We specifically asked the company about this, as well as other details of the Hatvanpuszta project, but they did not respond.

While favoritism and shady public procurements have been a staple of the Orbán governments, it would be a massive step up in corruption if a company, enriched with public money, indeed offered kickbacks for the Prime Minister by investing its funds into a family mansion. That however would not be entirely surprising, as the company has a precedent in its history for “gifting” a building: in 2023, Átlátszó wrote that the company built an ice rink for free for the Felcsút local government.

Vitor Orbán has carefully cultivated an image of himself as a man of simple taste living a humble lifestyle. Because of that,

Orbán repeatedly denied that he has anything to do with the Hatvanpuszta mansion, which is officially owned by the Prime Minister’s father,

Győző Orbán Sr. Media reports however claim that Viktor Orbán has visited the estate and even hosted official meetings there.

The Orbán family refer to the estate an agricultural complex, even though footage of it shows neither farming, livestock, or any building or equipment suitable for agricultural purposes. The “agricultural complex” narrative is not even true on paper, since the property’s energy certificates list a large part of the complex as residential buildings.

Ákos Hadházy also published interior photos and floor plans of the estate, which show, among other rooms, a club hall, restaurant-sized kitchens, a library, and 10 complete apartments.

In August, Győző Orbán was interviewed by the pro-government tabloid Bors and claimed that the money for all this from the sales revenue of his mining company, Dolomit Kőbányászati Kft.

“I have been working in the Gánt quarry for 50 years. We got together at the time of the change of regime and bought it. It was one of the few successful MRPs (Employee Share Ownership Program). There are still five of us. I own 51 percent of it. We managed it well. It has become a serious business, and today it provides bread for seventy families in the area,”

he said.

Many people, including opposition politician Péter Magyar, say that it is hard to believe that the profits from the Gánt mine were actually enough for such a large investment. According to financial reports available on the website of the Ministry of Justice, Dolomit Kft.’s after-tax profit since 2001 has been just over 20 billion HUF (51.3 million EUR). The owners took almost all of this as dividends, so Győző Orbán also received about 10.2 billion HUF (26.16 million EUR).

The exact price of the Hatvanpuszta investment is not known, but the press estimates its minimum cost at 10–11.5 billion HUF (25.65–29.51 million EUR) – such a price would be too much for Győző Orbán to cover alone, but more than affordable for a company as large as Fejér B.Á.L.