HungaryTrends – The week in business and finance

See below MTI’s main business and financial news from the previous week:

KONZUM INVESTMENT FUND MANAGER TO ACQUIRE 49 PC STAKE IN MKB BANK

Holding company Konzum said its investment fund manager had reached agreements to acquire a 49 percent stake in MKB Bank, Hungary’s fifth-biggest lender. Konzum announced the deals days after the business magnate Lőrinc Mészáros’s stake in the investment fund manager was boosted to 53 percent. MKB was sold for 37 billion forints (EUR 120m) in a privatisation about a year ago, following a restructuring by the National Bank of Hungary (NBH).

BANKING SECTOR PROFITS FALL IN Q1 AS OPERATING COSTS CLIMB

Hungarian banks’ combined after-tax profit fell by an annual 9 percent to 175 billion forints (EUR 568m) in the first quarter as operating costs jumped, fresh data released by the central bank showed.

INDIA’S SONA INAUGURATES EUR 5M PLANT IN HUNGARY

India’s Sona Group inaugurated a 1.5 billion forint (EUR 5m) production hall in Polgar, eastern Hungary. Sona, which makes precision forged parts for the automotive industry, won a 600 million forint government grant for the investment. The production hall is part of a 4.2 billion forint investment programme in the Polgar industrial park that will wind up in 2021, creating 130 jobs, said Sona chairman Sunjay Kapur.

HUNGARY PMI JUMPS TO 62.1 POINTS IN MAY

Hungary’s seasonally-adjusted Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 62.1 points in May from 56.2 in April, reaching a record high, the Hungarian Association of Logistics, Purchasing and Inventory Management (Halpim), which compiles the index, said.