{"id":27117,"date":"2026-10-16T15:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=27117"},"modified":"2026-10-16T15:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:20:24","slug":"vhid-leaked-records-chateau-jets-yacht-state-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2026\/10\/16\/vhid-leaked-records-chateau-jets-yacht-state-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"V-H\u00edd leak itemises a French ch\u00e2teau stay, private jets and a \u20ac600,000 yacht at M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros\u2019s railway builder"},"content":{"rendered":"<section aria-labelledby=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\" class=\"auk-zvimcvi-inrtzyj\" lang=\"en\">\n<h2 id=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-inrtzyj-hlesdml-zofjqh\">In brief<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Internal V-H\u00edd documents obtained by Direkt36 list a four-day France retreat, flights to several countries and a rented yacht.<\/li>\n<li>The records do not say who took part in the France trip, and no wrongdoing is established in them.<\/li>\n<li>V-H\u00edd says it is not state-owned and treats the information as business secrets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/section>\n<p>The railway builder V-H\u00edd, owned by billionaire L\u0151rinc M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros, sent nine employees on a private jet to southwestern France in May 2024. Confidential internal documents obtained by the investigative outlet Direkt36 describe the trip and a wider pattern of spending. The second part of its \u201cM\u00e9sz\u00e1ros Files\u201d series, published in English by <a href=\"https:\/\/telex.hu\/direkt36\/2026\/10\/09\/company-built-in-public-contracts-spent-lavishly-on-luxury-trips-the-meszaros-files-part-ii\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Telex English<\/a>, sets that spending against the company\u2019s reliance on public contracts in Hungary.<\/p>\n<h2>A four-day retreat in southwestern France<\/h2>\n<p>The employees flew for a team-building event and stayed at Ch\u00e2teau de Clotte, an estate about an hour from Bordeaux, in a village with under 300 residents. The property was bought by L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Kalocsai, described as M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros\u2019s winemaker and business partner, who later opened a four-star hotel there.<\/p>\n<p>The event cost V-H\u00edd <strong>\u20ac158,773<\/strong> gross. The group occupied nine apartments, each costing more than \u20ac555 per person per night. Guests were offered massages, rides in vintage cars and a boat excursion on the Arcachon bay. The bill also carried \u20ac461 for cigars and \u20ac3,717 for unlimited drinks.<\/p>\n<h2>Foreign trips and private flights<\/h2>\n<p>The France jet was rented from Avcon Jet, an Austrian firm specialising in private jets. The documents also show trips to Dubai, the French Riviera and Tajikistan charged to the company, and a yacht rented in Cannes at an additional \u20ac600,000. Across the years covered by the records, foreign travel cost the company over <strong>3.3 million euros<\/strong>, even though most of V-H\u00edd\u2019s work at the time was in Hungary.<\/p>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Period<\/th>\n<th>Trip<\/th>\n<th>Cost<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>2023<\/td>\n<td>London, Pisa and Nice<\/td>\n<td>\u20ac83,200 in total<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>February 2024<\/td>\n<td>Tajikistan, four people aboard<\/td>\n<td>\u20ac46,200<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>April 2024<\/td>\n<td>Two trips to the United Arab Emirates<\/td>\n<td>\u20ac94,000 in total<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2024<\/td>\n<td>Eight foreign trips by private flight<\/td>\n<td>Over \u20ac200,000<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>According to HVG, M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros joined a hunt in Tajikistan\u2019s Pamir range in 2024, though nothing shows whether the February flight was linked to it.<\/p>\n<h2>Aircraft held by a trust<\/h2>\n<p>A trust arrangement lets a trustee manage transferred assets for designated beneficiaries, and it can make the original owner less visible to the public. According to the documents, AGBVK Bizalmi Vagyonkezel\u0151 Zrt. acts as trustee for assets of M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros\u2019s companies, and those assets funded the purchase of aircraft.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"hpd-nfnmyipv-imzntj-gogcn\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Gros plan d\u2019un rail rouill\u00e9 sur des traverses en bois us\u00e9es, entour\u00e9 de pierres de ballast et d\u2019herbes s\u00e8ches.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/gros-plan-un-rail-rouille-sur-des-traverses-en-bois-usees.jpg\" \/><figcaption>Un rail rouill\u00e9 et des traverses de bois reposent sur du ballast, image illustrant un article o\u00f9 le leak V-H\u00edd \u00e9voque une entreprise ferroviaire, sans montrer ses chantiers. <span class=\"auk-gogcn-ertkm\" data-provider=\"pexels\">Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/railroad-2371944\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a>. Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/@athena\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Athena Sandrini<\/a>. License: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/license\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels License<\/a>.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A document dated 20 June 2025 and addressed to four M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros companies states that the trustee paid 19.1 billion forints, roughly 50 million euros, for the aircraft registered OE-LOT. It followed OE-LEM, also bought from those assets, which Viktor Orb\u00e1n used to travel to Bulgaria in 2018 for a Videoton match. In November 2023, V-H\u00edd contracted to rent OE-LEM for 85 flight hours at 850,000 euros, so one M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros company rented a plane bought with assets of others in the group.<\/p>\n<p>A helicopter registered OE-XWY was acquired by the trust using assets of M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros\u2019s companies and of Duna Aszfalt, owned by L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Sz\u00edjj, whose companies also won numerous high-value public contracts under Orb\u00e1n.<\/p>\n<h2>Profits, dividends and public contracts<\/h2>\n<p>V-H\u00edd is among the most profitable companies in the M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros empire. Last year its after-tax profit reached about <strong>65.9 million euros<\/strong>, and M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros received close to <strong>25.14 million euros<\/strong> in dividends. Transparency International Hungary data place it among the firms with the most public procurement wins over a three-year span. It won the Southern Ring Railway tender and is a subcontractor on the Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade line and on the M1 motorway expansion.<\/p>\n<p>Large sums also went on domestic events, including one hosted by Anita K\u00f6b\u00f6l, now spokesperson for the Tisza Party government, which defeated Orb\u00e1n\u2019s party in the April parliamentary elections. The first part of the series showed V-H\u00edd providing large sums to Megafon, which supported Fidesz campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>J\u00f3zsef P\u00e9ter Martin, who heads Transparency International Hungary, told Direkt36 that yacht and helicopter trips reveal an unfair procurement system, since a fair one would leave no room for such spending, and he described that system as \u201ca breeding ground for corruption\u201d. That is his assessment of the system, not a finding about V-H\u00edd.<\/p>\n<h2>The company\u2019s reply and the limits of the records<\/h2>\n<p>Direkt36 sent V-H\u00edd detailed questions, but the company gave no substantive answers. It stressed that it is not state-owned, said the information constitutes business secrets and said it does not consent to its publication. The records do not show precisely who went on the France trip, and they establish no illegality by V-H\u00edd. Telex English, relaying Direkt36, is the only publisher behind these details, and the documents have not been independently confirmed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"media-credit auk-gogcn-ertkm\" data-provider=\"pexels\"><small>Featured image. Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/a-man-and-woman-on-a-private-jet-5778222\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels<\/a>. Credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/@rdne\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">RDNE Stock project<\/a>. License: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/license\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Pexels License<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Confidential records obtained by Direkt36 list a four-day retreat costing \u20ac158,773, over \u20ac3.3m of foreign travel and aircraft bought through a trust, at a firm that earns heavily from Hungarian public contracts.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":27119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[1190,1188,1156,1186,1189,1187],"class_list":["post-27117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-central-europe","tag-direkt36","tag-hungary","tag-lorinc-meszaros","tag-public-procurement","tag-v-hid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27125,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27117\/revisions\/27125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}