While the telephone operator Digi has just arrived in Belgium, who is the man behind this successful company? The multimillionaire Zoltán Teszári is, in fact, very discreet.
Since December 11, Belgium has welcomed a new telephone operator: Digi, a Romanian company which is shaking up market prices. Indeed, subscriptions start from 5 euros for 15 GB of mobile data, offers which force other operators to adjust.
This arrival caused a lot of noise, but the project was led by a much more discreet man. Zoltán Teszári, the businessman behind Digi, is nicknamed “the invisible billionaire”, as explained by the Dutch-language media HLN.
From judoka to businessman
Zoltán Teszári was born in 1970 into a Hungarian family in Romania, according to the media L'Echo. A former judo champion, he also sold contraband items before investing in telecommunications. He even ran an ice cream shop before going into business.
In 1993 he founded what would become DIGI Communications. In the 2000s, his business grew, and that's when he seized a big opportunity. According to HLN, he is growing his business by following Romanian workers abroad, selling SIM cards to the Romanian diaspora in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Portugal and Spain, where the Romanian community is particularly large. Its success is dazzling, and the operator quickly becomes essential.
A shadow on the board
However, this success story presents some gray areas. L'Echo reports that a money laundering investigation was opened in Romania against DIGI and Zoltán Teszári in 2017.
Although he has officially not been the CEO of the company since 2015 and is now Romania's fifth richest man, no photo of him has circulated since 2002. Romanian paparazzi were even sent to his search without success.
