No sign of the plant to be opened in Hungary in August with more than €17,7 million in Hungarian state funding

Russian-backed Arnest Hungary Kft. received more than €17,7 million of funding from the Hungarian state for an investment near Miskolc last year. The plant is scheduled to be handed over in August 2023, but there is no sign of it yet, while the company's ownership changed last autumn, 24.hu reports.

Last year's announcement projected a warehouse and a plant for hygiene and household products to be handed over in August of this year in Alsózsolca, with a total investment value of €48.5 million and 256 new jobs for the region.

The investment by the Russian cosmetics company was also discussed by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

According to the contract, the Hungarian state was supposed to contribute more than €6.5 million in 2022 and close to €8,5 million this year, as well as another €2,6 million to be paid out in 2024. Thus, almost 40 percent of the project in Alsózsolca is financed by Hungary. At the end of September 2022, the Department of Construction and Heritage Protection of the County Government Office granted a permit for the reconstruction and expansion of the building, and the project was declared of high national economic importance. However, a site licence has not yet been submitted to the municipality.

A few months ahead of the planned handover, there is no sign of the project whatsoever, and the company's Russian owner, Arnest Group, was replaced by a Vienna-based company, Vesta Development Austria GmbH, in October 2022.

The owner of the company, according to company documents, is Margarita Sagal, a Vienna resident – it is not known whether she is related to the chairman of the Russian Arnest Group Alexei Sagal.

A few months ago, Hungarian paper HVG described Alexei Sagal as someone who has connections in the Kremlin's highest circles and is a beneficiary of the Orbán government's residency bond business. Yelena Sagal, Alexei's wife, is a member of Russian President Putin's party and of the Russian legislature, and was one of the Russian politicians and billionaires who obtained Hungarian citizenship after 2013 through the residency bond program.