According to Bloomberg, 4iG shares have lost 50% since their peak in 2025. Investors believe that the company could lose its privileged relations with the Hungarian state in the event of the defeat of Viktor Orban on April 12.
Viktor Orban heading out? Ten days before the legislative elections in Hungary, it is the opponent of the current Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, who is leading the race in the polls.
If the chips are not yet decided, the prospect of a defeat of the national-conservative leader in power for 16 years has never seemed so credible. Including in the eyes of investors if we rely on the evolution of the 4iG company’s action, reports Bloomberg.
The title of this Hungarian telecommunications flagship has fallen by 50% since its peak reached in November 2025. And the decline has only accelerated as the number of polls predicting a defeat for Viktor Orban have multiplied. And for good reason, 4iG is known for its links with power: it is mainly thanks to public contracts, agreements made with the government and the benevolence of the State in regulatory matters that the company has seen its valuation jump from 20 million to 2.3 billion dollars in eight years.
“4iG is a typical example of the Hungarian economic model, strongly linked to the state,” Jozsef Peter Martin, director of Transparency International in Hungary, explained to Bloomberg. “Businesses thrive there not primarily thanks to competition, but thanks to access to financing, contracts and regulatory support from the state,” he added. A very valuable advantage which could be threatened in the event of the defeat of Viktor Orban.
Acquisitions multiples
If 4iG has experienced meteoric growth for eight years, it is precisely because it was eight years ago that Gellert Jaszai, close to Viktor Orban, arrived at the head of 4iG. This businessman is also the Hungarian government’s special envoy on issues related to international trade relations. It was also he who accompanied the Prime Minister to Mar-a-Lago in 2024 to negotiate agreements with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. At the time, the publication of a photo in which the American billionaire, Viktor Orban and Gellert Jaszai appeared caused 4iG’s shares to jump.
In recent years, the company has stood out for its frenzy of takeovers, as recalled by Courrier International. In 2021, it acquired Invitech, “one of the Hungarian leaders in infrastructure and the provision of IT services”. Three months later, it bought the mobile operator One in Montenegro and at the same time took shares in other telecoms companies.
But one of its biggest operations was undoubtedly the acquisition with the State of the Magyar subsidiary of Vodafone in 2022. Enough to allow 4iG to become the second mobile and fixed operator in the country, as recalled by the General Directorate of the Treasury, while specifying that “4iG, whose CEO (also majority shareholder), Jászai Gellért has close ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has started rapid growth in the telecommunications market, not only in Hungary but also in neighboring countries.”
Since then, the company has diversified its activities, particularly in defense and the space industry. It has thus concluded agreements with Lockheed Martin, Axiom Space and Rheinmetall.
But ten days before the legislative elections, investors believe that 4iG could not benefit from the same leniency and the same support from the state in the event of Peter Magyar’s victory.
“Some analysts expect that a future government led by Tisza (Peter Magyar’s party) will favor measures aimed at increasing competition,” Orsolya Raczova, analyst at Eurasia Group, told Bloomberg. The American agency also recalls that Peter Magyar announced last June his desire to sell his 4iG shares to denounce Orban’s plan to make the company “the nerve center of the Hungarian defense industry”. “The security of the homeland cannot be the business of dubious oligarchs,” he said.
