Hungarian company Lugos Renewables owned by businessman Roland Lugos withdrew from 70 percent ownership of the company “Solar Power Plant Trebinje 1” which holds a concession for the construction of one of the largest energy facilities of this type near Trebinje, worth over 100 million KM. This ownership stake was taken over by another Hungarian company
The Government of Republika Srpska approved the transfer of 70 percent of shares of this company to the new Hungarian investor MAYER NRG Kft from Budapest in January of this year. Everything was subsequently published in the Official Gazette of RS, and recently the new owner was registered in the District Commercial Court in Trebinje.
Official data from the Hungarian business register “Opten” shows that this is a company with no employees and no serious revenue, and its total assets are worth around 2,500 euros.
Data from the financial reports of the new owner shows that for five years, up to 2023, this company had no serious revenue, yet it is entering a business worth 100 million KM.
According to available data, this company recorded a loss of 11 thousand forints or 27 euros in 2023 and has more liabilities than assets, meaning very low capacity for short-term debt settlement. For all the years shown, it had no sales or business activity.
The company’s website mayer-nrg.com was opened according to data from the Who.is platform one month before taking over the concession, specifically in December 2024.
However, that website states that the company has experts “who have more than 10 years of experience in the renewable energy sector and have developed a complex and unique knowledge base”.
In our investigation, we were assisted by journalists from the Hungarian weekly Magyar Hang (“Hungarian Voice”) who found this company at Szilágyi Erzsébet fasor 79 in Budapest, in a building containing private apartments.
According to data, the current owners of Mayer NRG Kft are teenagers Luca Mádi-Szabó (18), Vica Mádi-Szabó (20), and co-owner is the company SUN DIRECTION Kft which has capital of around 86,000 euros and operated at a loss until last year. The fourth co-owner is the company PVC MIDDLE EAST POWER GENERATION FACILITIES OPERATION AE Dubai, about which no information is available.
One of the former owners is Ferenc Mayer, but he withdrew from ownership of this company in February last year.
In a statement to “Magyar Hang” journalists, Mayer NRG Kft says they will build the solar power plant in Trebinje next year, after obtaining all necessary permits.
When asked how they entered a business worth 100 million KM, they state that they heard about the entire story from acquaintances.
“One of the company’s financiers is a good acquaintance of mine, and they signaled to me that, if it could be interesting, we should sit down and talk. Then, over about a year, we managed to take ownership after all necessary procedures. Now the timeframe is being re-planned, and construction will begin next year, lasting about 2 years. The power plant will start production in 2029. Regarding financial instruments, a serious professional team is working on assembling project financing, so we rightfully believe we will succeed, despite the difficult political situation and risks in Balkan countries. We hope to be able to obtain project approval and license from authorities within 6-8 months ” stated the representative of Mayer NRG Kft who responded to the inquiry from “Magyar Hang” journalists from the company’s official email.
This Company’s Business Connections Again Lead to Businessman Roland Lugos
This company’s business connections in a rather complex ownership scheme again lead to controversial businessman Roland Lugos, because MAYER NRG Kft has one joint enterprise (Sol Trust kft) with the company Lugos Renewables which is withdrawing from the project.
Namely, in Hungary last year, liquidation was ordered for Lugos’s main company Optimum solar ZRT which had long been one of the major players in the solar energy market in this country. It won major Hungarian tenders for renewable energy sources (METÁR tenders), took over international projects, but numerous problems stopped this businessman’s ambitious projects.
The company LUGOS Renewables which entered the business of building the solar power plant in Trebinje is significantly smaller than Optimum solar ZRT, recorded a loss of about 2.3 million euros in 2022, while the number of employees was reduced from 22 to only 3 workers.
The rise and fall of Lugos was written about in detail by Gergely Brückner, a journalist from one of Hungary’s leading independent media, Telex.hu, in an article titled “Adventurous story and fall of a billion-dollar solar company – with an airport in Taszár, war in Ukraine and football in Újpest”.
In a statement to Transparentno.ba, Gergely Brückner states that he does not know what the fate of the Trebinje project will be after Lugos’s withdrawal and that he has never heard of Mayer NRG before, although he has been following topics related to renewable energy production subsidies for years.
“Neither I, nor the leading people in Hungary’s domestic solar energy market with whom I spoke, are familiar with such a company (Mayer NRG Kft) or its leaders, which is strange because it is not usual for a player previously unknown in that sector to immediately come to market to realize an international project worth 50 million euros”, Brückner said.
It is precisely the credibility of the investor that is questionable, because the company “SE Trebinje 1” itself, which was taken over by the new Hungarian company, has neither secured financial resources nor technical conditions to realize this project and by law could not even acquire the concession that was transferred to it by Electric Power Industry RS.
In the documentation that TI BiH obtained from the Concessions Commission, it states that a written statement from “SE Trebinje 1” director Milutin Mastilović was sufficient proof to determine that this newly established company with three workers and 800 KM revenue has the conditions to realize a project worth 100 million KM.
Milutin Mastilović is an SNSD councilor in Trebinje and by law, at the time when this was a public enterprise, could not even be appointed to the position of director.
This company did not respond to questions about the new owner, so Capital.ba portal journalists tried to get a comment from Mastilović. However, in a brief phone conversation, he said to call him later and no longer answered the phone.
How the Hungarians entered the business
The Trebinje solar power plant construction project has been accompanied by numerous controversies from the very beginning, and TI BiH has already pointed out that the Hungarian investor was introduced to the business by circumventing the law and public competition. In addition to the mentioned dispute with the RS Concessions Commission, it should be noted that TI BiH could not obtain information from Electric Power Industry RS, which is hiding the conditions under which majority ownership of SE Trebinje 1 was transferred to the Hungarian investor.
The power plant has still not been built, although the original deadline from the concession contract expired in October 2022.
TI BiH has published a case study that points to the existence of a broader problem in the field of concessions, where introducing foreign investors under non-transparent conditions often has fatal consequences for the public interest.
This is further highlighted by current affairs regarding disputed concessions that have been shaking the public in recent months because Republika Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina must pay hundreds of millions of KM to companies of questionable credibility for concessions that were never realized.
