Babiš, Orbán, and Agrofert’s Lucrative Business in Hungary

The Path to Hungary

Agrofert entered the Hungarian market in 2009 when it acquired Devecseri Agrokémiai Kft., a company specializing in the logistics and distribution of agricultural crops. Over time, Agrofert began to thrive in Hungary and later in Romania as well. It now has several subsidiaries in these countries. These include a bakery, agricultural equipment sales centers, and a sunflower oil production plant.

In Hungary, the company received subsidies for these ventures. As described by the Hlídací pes website, in 2019, Agrofert received a subsidy of approximately €5 million (CZK 130 million) directly from the Hungarian government, intended for job creation.

Another subsidy, this time funded by the European Union in the amount of approx. €11.37 million (CZK 285 million), was awarded for a production line for toast bread manufacturing.

Seven years after expanding into Hungary, in 2016, the first subsidiary was established in Romania. It specializes in the trade of agrochemicals.

And it was in Romania that the business of the current Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babiš, became directly linked to people in Viktor Orbán’s inner circle: In 2023, Agrofert acquired a stake in the Romanian company East Grain, which it now co-owns with the Romanian group East Consulting. That group, in turn, is controlled by the Hungarian group Hodler Capital, founded by Miklós Kerezsi. Kerezsi is also a member of the board of directors of the Jövő Nemzedék Földje Alapítvány foundation, which manages Hungarian state-owned agricultural assets under the coordination of János Lázár, the former Minister of Construction and Transport — and one of the most influential figures in Orbán’s government.

The Hodler Capital Group, which along with Agrofert, co-owns East Grain, controls, among other things, funds that were managed by former ministers in Orbán’s government: former Minister of Energy Csaba Lantos and former Minister of Culture and Innovation János Csák. A Transparency International report describes these funds as a mechanism through which public money served private interests.

A few months before the announcement of the East Grain acquisition, Babiš’s longtime closest associate —Tünde Bartha — joined the Hungarian branch of Agrofert. After Babiš lost the presidential election, Bartha took up the position of business development manager. She oversaw Agrofert’s expansion in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

Billions from Orbán’s Childhood Friend

The editorial team at investigace.cz reviewed Agrofert’s annual reports and discovered that Agrofert had obtained loans from the Budapest-based MKB Bank. In 2023, MKB Bank merged with two other Hungarian banks. They now operate jointly under the name MBH Bank.

The Hungarian state owns 15 percent of MBH Bank’s shares, and another major shareholder is Orbán’s childhood friend Lőrinc Mészáros, who also held a stake in MKB Bank. Thanks to Orbán, Mészáros has become one of the wealthiest Hungarians. The Hungarian investigative website Átlátszó revealed that his companies secured a large number of government contracts, most of which were funded by the European Union.

And according to journalists at hvg.hu, Viktor Orbán used this very bank to provide loans to his allies. However, the loans were often not intended to finance their businesses, but rather their political parties. The Spanish far-right party Vox received a loan of 9.2 million euros from this bank for its 2023 election campaign. And its predecessor, MKB Bank, provided 10 million euros to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

MKB Bank also provided loans to Agrofert. The bank’s name first appeared in Agrofert’s annual report in 2021, with a loan amount of €8.7 million (CZK 222.7 million). In 2022, the amount was €25.6 million (CZK 629.7 million).

And in 2023, the bank lent Agrofert €71 million (CZK 1.7 billion), which is the largest loan Agrofert has ever received from MKB Bank.

The Chinese Gateway

Between 2018 and 2025, funds also flowed into Agrofert from the Chinese Bank of China. This bank is majority-owned by Central Huijin Investment, a state-controlled investment firm, and also has a branch in the Czech Republic — which was established by the Hungarian branch.

Agrofert received loans worth hundreds of millions of crowns from the Hungarian branch of the Bank of China. In 2022, for example, the loan worth was €35.8 million (CZK 880.1 million). Agrofert has not yet published the value of the loans for 2025.

The editorial team gave Agrofert the opportunity to comment on these findings, but its spokesperson did not respond to inquiries by the time this article was published.