MOL chief Hernádi: Hungary needed a much more predictable regulatory environment

Shareholders of Hungarian oil and gas company MOL approved a proposal to pay a total dividend of HUF 275 per share at an annual general meeting on Thursday.

Shareholders will receive a base dividend of HUF 165 per share based on last year’s earnings and a special dividend of around HUF 110 per share. The dividend fund will amount to HUF 220.4bn. MOL had an after-tax profit of HUF 355.8bn in 2024.

Fielding questions from shareholders, chairman-CEO Zsolt Hernadi said the bigger dividend — up from HUF 250-per-share a year earlier — was proposed as the company didn’t anticipate making any “bigger acquisitions” that would require cash in 2025.

He said MOL had to prepare for an era characterised by uncertainty that he called “the new normal”, but pointed to the company’s reputation for continuing to grow and for finding new solutions even in the face of unpredictability.

Hernadi highlighted the importance of maintaining the economic sovereignty of Hungary and improving the country’s competitiveness. He acknowledged that the deterioration of the country’s competitiveness had external causes, such as the weak German economy, as well as internal ones.

He said improving competitiveness was helped by neither the uncertainty caused by the tariffs war nor the EU’s green policies. He added that Hungary needed a much more predictable regulatory environment.

Hernadi noted that MOL had paid USD 3.5bn in “extra tax”, at group level, in the Central European region in the past three years.

As we wrote a few days ago, U.S. Court Sides with MOL, Croatia ordered to pay $200 million in damages, details HERE.

Also, we wrote, MOL’s USD 400-million investment in Pakistan was touted as a Hungary–Pakistan success story

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