In March this year, the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) uncovered huge losses and other serious irregularities in the activities of a foundation that was set up by the Hungarian National Bank (MNB). According to ÁSZ, the company managing hundreds of billions of forints in foundation assets operated through an extremely complex network of companies, against its original objectives, and lost huge amounts of money.

The auditors also found that a significant amount of money, billions of forints, from the foundation’s assets had been transferred to companies owned by an entrepreneur named Bálint Somlai, who was a friend of Ádám Matolcsy, the son of the then president of the central bank.

However, Ádám Matolcsy’s name does not appear in the report, as ÁSZ, following the trail of billions from the foundation, did not find any company linked to him. Direkt36 has now found a company that is linked both to GTC, the real estate company involved in the MNB scandal, and to the son of György Matolcsy, former MNB president, as well.

The company is called Urban Estate Zrt., and according to a document Direkt36 has obtained, it signed a contract with GTC worth more than HUF 7 billion (EUR 17,9 million) for a hotel project in Budapest’s 7th district. Although this project has since been suspended, according to the original plans, Urban Estate would also have benefited from the MNB foundation funds that, according to the auditors, were squandered.

On the one end, Urban Estate can be linked to one of the figures involved in the MNB scandal. On the other end, the company also has ties to Ádám Matolcsy.

These connections can be traced back to Dubai, where the former central bank governor’s son has had businesses for years. For example, Urban Estate’s job advertisements in Dubai were posted by an employee of a company linked to Ádám Matolcsy through several luxury properties and personal connections.

“We are looking for a new colleague to join our young and dynamic team” – this is how an employee at a company called Minelley DMCC posted a job advertisement on her professional profile in 2023. Direkt36 previously reported that Minelley DMCC, a company involved in financial coordination and visa transactions, has close ties to Ádám Matolcsy. However, in the post, the employee advertised a position at the Hungarian company Urban Estate Zrt. rather than his officially listed employer, Minelley, and attached a document with details of the job opportunity to his post. At the end of the ad, he listed the email address hr@urbanestate.hu as a contact.

This post, along with the fact that Minelley’s employee refers to Urban Estate in the first person plural, suggests a close collaboration between the two companies.

This connection is a seemingly minor but important development in the politically sensitive MNB scandal. Under the presidency of György Matolcsy, for many years one of Viktor Orbán’s closest confidants, the central bank established a foundation structure in which auditors later found serious losses of assets. It has now emerged that one of the participants in the foundation’s transactions is linked to one of György Matolcsy’s sons, Ádám.

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Hungarian news site Telex also recently found information suggesting a possible connection between Urban Estate and Ádám Matolcsy. However, the site did not write about the Hungarian company, but about a Dubai-based company with an almost identical name, Urban Estate Building Constructing LLC. According to the article, in February 2025, a package worth approximately HUF 26 million (EUR 66.000) was sent to Urban Estate’s Dubai address. As reported, an employee of Magyar Stratégiai Zrt., owned by Ádám Matolcsy, was designated as the authorized representative for customs clearance.

Previously, an employee of Minelley posted a job advertisement at the end of which he provided his own email address ending with mstrat.hu as his contact details. This address also belongs to Magyar Stratégiai Zrt.

It appears that the Hungarian and Dubai-based companies named Urban Estate not only share the same name, but also have a closer connection than that. The Hungarian company’s website features several graphic elements, such as the company name and logo, which appear in almost exactly the same form on the Emirati website available at urbanestate.ae.

Tailored to purpose

Urban Estate Zrt. is connected to Ádám Matolcsy’s circle through several other personal and business ties. Since November 2024, the company’s CEO and, according to several company documents, shareholder has been a man named György Pregitzer. According to several documents obtained by Direkt36, he was also an employee of Raw Development, a company owned by Bálint Somlai, a friend of Ádám Matolcsy. Pregitzer’s name appeared in several documents as the company’s contact person or manager.

Urban Estate is currently a shareholder in Danube VRSMRT Projekt Kft., where its co-owner is a company owned by the FELIS Private Equity Fund. In January 2023, Direkt36 revealed, based on an official database that has been shut down sicne then, that the ultimate beneficial owner of FELIS – at least at that time – was István Száraz, a friend of Ádám Matolcsy.

The website of Urban Estate Zrt., a company registered in Hungary, also contains several clues pointing to Ádám Matolcsy’s circle. Based on its references, the company has completed several orders on properties owned by a company called Skygreen Buildings Kft. These include several buildings in the Infopark in District XI, and 39 Lövőház Street in District II, which is the headquarters of several companies owned by István Száraz and New Wave Service Kft., which is directly owned by Ádám Matolcsy.

The owners of Skygreen Buildings Kft. are private equity funds, and it is not officially known who is behind them. However, news site Válasz Online discovered in connection with a loan transaction that the company is linked to Ádám Matolcsy. According to the site, the loan was granted by a bank called MKB to a company in which Matolcsy has an interest, secured by SkyGreen Buildings’ real estate worth approximately 35 billion forints. Telex, another news site, recently revealed, with the help of a document they obtained, that the private equity funds behind Skygreen Buildings are linked to Ádám Matolcsy.

Based on the available data, Urban Estate’s activities are largely focused on properties linked to GTC, the real estate company criticized by MNB auditors, or to the circle of associates of the former MNB president’s son. No information is available on the exact remuneration for individual investments, but the company’s financial reports have shown a spectacular growth. In 2023, Urban Estate generated net sales of HUF 3.3 billion (EUR 8.4 million) and a profit of HUF 1.3 billion (EUR 3.3 million). Growth continued in 2024, with the company’s revenues exceeding HUF 5.3 billion (EUR 13,5 million).

At the same time, it seems that with the outbreak of the MNB scandal, difficult times may lie ahead for the company.

For example, according to documents obtained by Direkt36, an investment project in Budapest’s 7th district, which would have been carried out for GTC, a company affiliated with the MNB Foundation and considered a bad investment by auditors, has been halted.

According to the contract we obtained, one of GTC’s project companies entrusted Urban Estate with a hotel project worth more than HUF 7 billion (EUR 17,9 million) at the end of 2024. The hotel was to be built on Kazinczy Street in District VII, but the parties signed a termination agreement in the spring of 2025. This was related to the MNB scandal that broke out in March. At least in April 2025, the district municipality made the following statement to Telex about the investment:

“The negotiations with GTC were suspended by the Erzsébetváros local government on the same day that Mihály Varga, the incoming governor of the central bank, dismissed the CEO of Optima Investment Fund Management Ltd. and appointed a new leader.”