According to 444.hu, Gyula Balásy has effectively scooped up every state communications contract since 2016, while also handling PR for state-owned firms. Meanwhile, his companies operated with a healthy 10 percent profit margin, potentially netting him tens of billions as sole owner. Ákos Hadházy claims he sought to spirit these funds abroad after Fidesz’s defeat, only for the tax authorities to intervene.
House of cards
444.hu reports that over the past decade, some HUF 450 billion flowed through Balásy’s communications firms (much of the work subcontracted), leaving him with a tidy HUF 44-50 billion in profit. He withdrew it and lived extravagantly: supercars in the garage, a floating villa commissioned in Tihany (per Hadházy), a Budapest hill levelled for his living room view, further properties at Csőszpuszta, and ownership of a Florida luxury flat.
According to 24.hu, the dividends Balásy has received from his companies since 2017 have reached HUF 92 billion (€253 million).
Beyond that, Balásy allegedly organised every state event, extracting another HUF 12 billion in profit from those firms, according to 444’s calculations. Hadházy insists he faced no competition, operating in a total monopoly on state contracts and state firms’ spending, without ever needing to prove himself as an entrepreneur. He has never granted an interview, shunning talk of his success; when 444.hu cornered him at a car meet, he offered curt, nonsensical replies, as if clueless about his own companies’ dealings.
Yet his firms underpinned key campaigns, including the anti-migration drive and the recent election effort, where they sought to link Péter Magyar to Zelensky in the eyes of the Orbán government.
Gyula Balásy’s “generous” offer to the state
Balásy broke his silence yesterday in an interview with Kontroll, a Tisza-aligned outlet, announcing he would relinquish his stakes in all event-planning, communications, and media companies, offering them to the state. Their value, post-government change, is effectively nil amid the halt in state contracts. He insists everything is above board—no overpricing—so no investigations will follow.
Balásy portrays these as valuable assets: his firms represent “HUF 80 billion in value,” plus a “HUF 100 billion contract book” with nearly 30 billion in retained earnings and 15 billion in receivables—”big businesses worth HUF 100-200 billion.” The group employs some 500 staff, whose livelihoods he hopes to preserve.
Nothing will be forgotten, says Tisza vice-chairman
He has also pledged private investments to the state from his personal wealth: investment certificates in three private equity funds, worth tens of billions. He sidestepped Hadházy’s claims about moveable assets, real estate, or any thwarted attempt to transfer funds abroad that the taxman allegedly blocked.
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On that score, he merely noted that several companies’ accounts have been frozen since last Monday, preventing bill payments or salaries for the 500 staff.
The interview’s motives remain speculative. Tisza deputy leader Márk Radnai hit back hard on Facebook, branding Balásy the embodiment of every corruption we loathed in the Orbán era—”the sort we cast out for good on 12 April.” Nothing, he added, will be forgotten.
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