György Soros no longer the richest Hungarian?

Forbes.hu and blikk.hu reported that it is no longer György Soros, the Hungarian-American investor and business magnate who is the richest Hungarian in the world. In fact, it is Tamás Péterffy. Based on the constantly updated list of American Forbes, Soros fell back to the 196th rank (in world total) after he had announced an enourmous donation to his foundation. As a consequence, the Hungarian-born Tamás Péterffy, with his 82th position, preceded not only him, but other significant well-known people like Rupert Murdich, the media magnate, too.

Tamás Péterffy is the 82th richest man in the world and the 31th richest in the USA. He lives in West Palm Beach in the close proximity of the president’s exclusive and private club, the Mar-a-Lago where he is also a member. He usually dines together with his Republican friends several times a week. Furthermore, he personally gave pieces of advice to Donald Trump.

Péterffy possesses 13.8 billion dollars, based on the updated list of Forbes, that is twice as much as the total wealth of the 10 richest Hungarians.

To make a comparison, the richest person living in Hungary is Sándor Csányi, the president of OTP Bank Group, who owns only 1/10th of the wealth of Péterffy, that is around 948 million euros.

Sándor Csányi (on the left) with the newly elected coach of the Hungarian football team, Georges Leekens
MTI Fotó: Illyés Tibor

It was only recently that Péterffy surpassed György Soros, after the Hungarian-American investor donated a significant part of his fortune to his foundation. Péterffy only met Soros once, and in his interview with Forbes, he revealed that he does not have a good opinion of him. He believes that there is no dictatorship in America. Soros, however, supports the public trouble-makers and the CEU (Central European University) is only a tool for him to put his money where it is unmonitored.

What to know about Tamás Péterffy?

He is the founder and chairman of the Interactive Brokers Group and he is considered to be the father of the electronic trading of securities on Wall Street. Still, in the early 80s, he gave rudimentary tablets to his colleagues in the stock market that calculated the price at which it was worth to make business contracts.

Tamás Péterffy
/facebook.hu/

Forbes made an interview with the billionaire in his house, built on 1,000 square meters, that is still very modest in the neighbourhood where members of the Trump family and his government also have houses. Although Péterffy could afford to travel, he does not like it. He only comes to Hungary once in every 5 years, when he has a class reunion. In Forbes Magazine, a photo is published with one of his high school classmates, the Hungarian billionaire, Sándor Demján, who is himself a businessman.

Tamás Péterffy also supports the American Republican party financially and urges the introduction of the Unconditional Basic Income (UBI).

Furthermore, he is also willing to support the research on the basic income with 2 million dollars. However, compared to the similarly rich people, his charity activities are relatively modest.

To learn more about him, like the reason why he supports the politics of Donald Trump, who the people are he dines with and why he is moderate with donating, check out the November edition of Hungarian Forbes.

Photos: facebook.hu; MTI

Source: forbes.hu; blikk.hu