We have also discovered that one of Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151\u2019s companies received<\/a> nearly HUF 300 million (EUR 776.000) in non-repayable grants in 2020 from an affiliate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It was also during that year that the photo was taken showing Benk\u0151 traveling alongside Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 aboard a luxury yacht named Lady MRD.<\/p>\n Benk\u0151 acquired Verbau in 2022 after the company had won a contract<\/a> to build a factory in Kecskem\u00e9t, a project funded by a billion-forint government grant. We also reported that the company was involved in the construction of the BMW plant in Debrecen, which was also supported by billions of forints in government funding.<\/p>\n The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade responded to our questions by stating that investment companies always decide for themselves who will build their factories. Verbau did not respond to our inquiry.<\/p>\n \u201cIndustrial gates, ramps, specialized construction, industrial flooring\u201d\u2014these are the construction tasks that Verbau Kft. undertook in a contract signed in the summer of 2023, according to documents obtained by Direkt36.<\/p>\n The documents do not specify the investment to which this work is linked, and the client is a construction company with which Verbau presumably entered into a contract as a subcontractor.<\/p>\n However, the work site is identified by a cadastral number, which makes it possible to know what kind of project was taking place there.<\/p>\n The number refers to an area near Debrecen, about which a document available for download from the city\u2019s website provides further details. This document is an amendment to an environmental permit concerning the battery factory being built near Debrecen by the Hungarian subsidiary of the Chinese company CATL.<\/p>\n The document reveals that the area, which has also been identified via satellite imagery, is part of the factory site. The document also reveals that the company is renting the site for its factory from INPARK Szigma Ipari Park Kft., a company indirectly owned by the Hungarian state.<\/p>\n Verbau Kft. has thus been awarded a contract related to one of the government\u2019s most prestigious projects, in an area ultimately owned by the Hungarian state.<\/p>\n The size of the contract is also significant. According to a document dated September 2024\u2014just over a year after the contract was signed\u2014a certificate of completion states that Verbau carried out work on the site in several phases, totaling more than HUF 6.7 billion (EUR 17,5 million) by that time. This report was created for the final invoice and was signed by both the ordering party and Verbau, so this amount most likely represents Verbau\u2019s total fee for the work.<\/p>\n CATL\u2019s Hungarian subsidiary and the indirectly state-owned INPARK Szigma Ipari Park responded to our inquiry by stating only that they have had no connection with Verbau Kft., either now or in the past. We did not make such a claim in our inquiry to them, nor does it result from the documents at our disposal (since Verbau received the contract not directly from them, but from a construction company).<\/p>\n There is no mention of this large-scale project, which has been ongoing for many months, either on Verbau\u2019s website or on the company\u2019s social media pages, which are otherwise regularly updated. A source familiar with the company\u2019s operations, who requested anonymity, told Direkt36 that this is not a coincidence.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter articles were published about the state-funded projects Verbau was working on, management issued a directive that this information should not be made public. It was not to be disclosed anywhere. If journalists called, no one was allowed to say anything,\u201d said the source.<\/p>\n According to the source, this is why, while the company reported on the state-subsidized Hilti construction project in Kecskem\u00e9t and the BMW investment\u2014which also received state funding\u2014it tried to keep the work related to the CATL factory confidential.<\/p>\n The source also mentioned that there were other projects linked to the government and to P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 personally in which Verbau Kft. was awarded contracts. One such project was the construction of a logistics warehouse in Mosonszolnok.<\/p>\n Although company\u2019s website featured a photo of the construction, the page did not include any written reference to the project.<\/p>\n The Mosonszolnok project was the construction of a new logistics center for the Indian Motherson Group, which was inaugurated in January of this year by P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 together with Minister of Agriculture Istv\u00e1n Nagy. The investment was part of the group\u2019s HUF 39 billion (EUR 101 million) development project in Hungary, and members of the government attended the inauguration because the Hungarian state provided HUF 9 billion (EUR 23 million) in funding for the project.<\/p>\n Although Verbau did not provide any details about the photo on its website, an employee of Motherson who requested anonymity identified the hall based on the image. In addition, a Google Street View image from the summer of 2025 shows a Verbau sign on the hall\u2019s fence listing the construction details.<\/p>\n We have no information on the exact amount Verbau Kft. was paid for the construction project in Mosonszolnok, nor do we know exactly what proportion of the company\u2019s revenue comes from state-subsidized projects.<\/p>\n A source familiar with the company\u2019s internal affairs commented: \u201cThere are many projects for which the company does not compete but simply receives them from the general contractor or subcontractor.\u201d<\/p>\n Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 has been the owner of Verbau Kft. since 2022. The company\u2019s financial indicators have skyrocketed since then, with net revenue rising from HUF 10 billion (EUR 26 million) in 2021 to 22 billion (EUR 57,5 million) in 2023 and 20 billion (EUR 52 million) in 2024.<\/p>\n After reaching HUF 1.5 billion (EUR 3,9 million) in 2021, the 2024 operating profit was more than three times that amount, at nearly 5.9 billion (EUR 15,4 million). Following the 2024 fiscal year, Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151 withdrew more than HUF 3.7 billion (EUR 9,6 million) from the company in dividends.<\/p>\n Andr\u00e1s Peth\u0151 contributed to the making of this article.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to documents obtained by Direkt36, a company owned by Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151, who is close to the foreign minister, was working on one part of the CATL factory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":12970,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-telex.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[701,464,734,700,315,698],"ppma_author":[550],"aioseo_notices":[],"fimg_url":["https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1774981807-temp-quilt37r7qteaoLIAej_hero-full_xl@1.25x.webp",1400,933,false],"authors":[{"term_id":550,"user_id":27,"is_guest":0,"slug":"szoke-daniel","display_name":"D\u00e1niel Sz\u0151ke","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Szoke-Daniel.png","url2x":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Szoke-Daniel.png"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Sz\u0151ke","first_name":"D\u00e1niel","job_title":"","description":"[:hu]Informatikus k\u00f6nyvt\u00e1ros szakon v\u00e9gzett az ELTE-n 2013-ban. K\u00fcls\u0151sk\u00e9nt t\u00f6bb \u00e9vig dolgozott a 444.hu-val, majd 2020-ban r\u00e9szt vett a Transparency International oknyomoz\u00f3 \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3i mentorprogramj\u00e1ban. 2021 janu\u00e1rj\u00e1t\u00f3l gyakornokk\u00e9nt, 2021 szeptember\u00e9t\u0151l pedig teljes \u00e1ll\u00e1sban a Direkt36 \u00fajs\u00e1g\u00edr\u00f3ja.[:en]Graduated from E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University at 2013 as a librarian scientist. As a freelancer he worked with 444.hu news-site for several years, and in 2020 attended Transparency International\u2019s mentor program for investigative journalists. In January 2021 he started to work as an intern, and since September 2021 he is a full-time journalist of Direkt36.[:]"}],"tag_names":[{"name":"akkumul\u00e1torgy\u00e1r","slug":"akkumulatorgyar"},{"name":"Szil\u00e1rd Benk\u0151","slug":"benko-szilard"},{"name":"catl","slug":"catl"},{"name":"Debrecen","slug":"debrecen"},{"name":"P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3","slug":"szijjarto-peter"},{"name":"Verbau","slug":"verbau"}],"category_names":[{"name":"Advisors of the State","slug":"az-allam-tanacsadoi"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12969"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12981,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12969\/revisions\/12981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12969"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=12969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Join Direkt36 supporter community and get insight into investigative journalism! Details \u2192<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
Contract worth billions on public land<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Silently, softly<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Join Direkt36 supporter community and get insight into investigative journalism! Details \u2192<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/assets.telex.hu\/images\/20260331\/1774964054-temp-67sdtnqmv1lj5ggihJc_cikktorzs:xs@2x.png)
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nFlying revenues<\/strong><\/h2>\n