How much money will Hungary’s richest amass by 2022?

The poorest people’s situation improved, the middle class did not particularly get wealthier, and the wealthiest amassed more wealth. People close to NER (National Cooperation System) certainly have advantages. But how much richer will Hungarians become in the next year?

“The amount of money stored on accounts under 100 million forints (EUR 286,428) increased by 130 per cent in 3 years until 2020, while the number of accounts decreased by almost 10 per cent. “ – István Karagich told Telex.

An analysis by Blochamps concluded that 8-9 per cent of private banking customers hold over 40 per cent of total domestic private banking assets, and Hungary may have up to 7,000 billionaires by 2025. Apart from today’s dollar billion pair (Sándor Csányi and Lőrinc Mészáros), there may be five new dollar billionaires in the future.

Covid took a toll on the rich as well, and the top 100 entrepreneurs’ total wealth dropped from 4633 billion forints (EUR 13,270,213,873) to 4568 billion. Although, 2021 may be a good year in terms of growth.

The number of the very rich is not growing, but their wealth is. Those who are already wealthy see a 10-20 per cent growth in their finances annually. Businesspeople related to politics have advantages, while others only keep their money and status.

István Karagich also told Telex that according to their prognosis, “the total assets managed by private banks will increase by almost 2,000 billion forints (EUR 5,728,562) to 8,000 billion (EUR 22,914,248) by 2022, and the financial portfolio of the richest entrepreneurs will expand to over 6,100 billion. (EUR 17,472,114,100)”

Another important aspect of this is that at the beginning of 2017, domestic private banks managed 3,860 billion forints (EUR 11,056,124,660) , but by the first half of 2021, this amount had increased to 7,000 billion (EUR 20,049,967,000), resulting in an 80 per cent increase.

 According to the Forbes list, in 2020, the richest Hungarian was Lőrinc Mészáros, businessman and publicly known friend of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. His wealth is an outstanding sum of 479,4 billion forints (more than EUR 13,719,905,990).

Second on the list is Sándor Csányi, who owns 393.4 billion forints. Next in the line is Tibor Veres, with an estimated 258.6 billion (above EUR 7,389,844,980) net worth. On the list, we can also find László Szíjj, known as the owner of the most successful domestic road construction company, Duna Aszfalt Kft. According to Index, with his company, he earned 20 million forints (EUR 57,285) per day. István Garancsi got himself a place on the list as well. He acquired the late Andy Vajna’s most valuable company and now owns Budapest’s gambling market, among other business ventures. Vajna’s widow earned a spot on the Forbes list as well. Besides her, there is only one woman on the list, Mária Schmidt, in the 42nd place. Lajos Simicska is also on the list. One interesting fact about him is that he was a great friend of the Hungarian prime minister until a few years ago. Gábor Bojár is at the 49th place on the list, with a net worth of 28.6 billion forints (above EUR 80,199,868).

The 50th place on the list is a true mystery.

“Last year, a temporary court order forced the recall of Forbes magazine because a family complained that they were on the list of the richest Hungarians.” – writes Forbes. The incident was so unusual that even Associated Press, other American newspapers and European publications wrote about the case.

Source: Telex, Forbes, Index