Orbán’s son-in-law extends his influence over major real estate company

Forrás: 444.hu

2018. June 26.

The Businesses of Orbán's Family

István Tiborcz now owns more than 75 percent of the company, which has a high-value real estate portfolio, according to company records reviewed by Direkt36.

István Tiborcz, a son-in-law of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, has become the majority owner of BDPST Zrt., a fast-growing real estate company after purchasing shares from one of his long-time business partners, company records show.

According to a document filed recently to the company court, Tiborcz now owns at least 75 percent of the company. The files, however, don’t show a full picture of the ownership structure. Tiborcz announced last year that he is one of the company’s owners.

BDPST has not responded to Direkt36’s questions.

The company has reportedly acquired several high-value properties since its foundation in 2015. According to press reports, the company owns buildings in Budapest’s most prominent areas and also a historic castle outside the capital.

According to its latest annual report, BDPST has more than 5 billion forints (15.6 million euros) in assets and its net profit last year was 4.1 billion forints (12.8 million euros).

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Tiborcz, 32, is the husband of Ráhel Orbán, the prime minister’s oldest daughter. He began his business career with an energy company that received several lucrative public contracts under controversial circumstances. Most of the projects were funded by the European Union, and the EU’s anti-fraud unit “revealed not only serious irregularities in most of the projects, but also conflict of interest.”

  • András Pethő

    András is a co-founder, editor and executive director of Direkt36. Previously, he was a senior editor for leading Hungarian news site Origo before it had been transformed into the government’s propaganda outlet. He also worked for the BBC World Service in London and was a reporter at the investigative unit of The Washington Post. He has contributed to several international reporting projects, including The Panama Papers. He twice won the Soma Prize, the prestigious annual award dedicated to investigative journalism in Hungary. He was a World Press Institute fellow in 2008, a Humphrey fellow at the University of Maryland in 2012/13, and a Nieman fellow at Harvard University in 2019/20. András has taught journalism courses at Hungarian universities.