Mazars celebrates its 30th anniversary in Hungary

Mazars celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2021. Below you can discover the milestones in the history of Mazars in Hungary.

1990: Claude Guérard, the leader of Guérard Viala decides to establish his first subsidiaries in Prague, Warsaw and Budapest in order to help French investors in the newly-opened markets of East-Central Europe. 

1991: The establishment of the Hungarian office, with Laurent Gasser as managing director. 

1992-1994: The circle of clients grows steadily, primarily consisting of French companies.  By this time, France is one of the most prominent investors in Hungary. 

1995: Sales revenue exceeds HUF 100 million for the first time; Alain Hortion becomes the new managing director. This is also the year when the first French competitor, Salustro-Reydel enters the market.

1996: With the merger of Mazars and Guérard Viala, Mazars & Guérard is born.  The merger opens a new chapter in the life of the company with dynamic French leadership making us stronger in both the French and European markets – and thus, on the Hungarian market as well.

1997-2002: This period is marked by a continuous growth in every branch of the company: audit, accounting and payroll accounting.  French business connections still represent a considerable proportion of companies in our clientèle. In 1999 our current Audit Director, Andrea Molnár joins Mazars as a fresh graduate. Building a successfull career at Mazars for more than 20 years, today as a Certified Public Accountant in Hungary and an ACCA member, she has significant professional experience in auditing international companies and groups of companies.

2002: Our strategic aim was to offer clients a complex consulting service, yet tax advisory was missing from our range of services.  Sándor Szmicsek joins the company in this year and proceeds to build up the team of tax services, forming the Tax & Legal advisory branch of the company. 

2003: The new managing director, François Monville takes leadership of the company. Due to the favourable economic climate and the well-conceived business strategy of the management, the profit of the audit services branch shows an 80% increase under his leadership, resulting in a revenue of HUF 630 million and enabling the company to reach a total sales revenue of HUF 1.4 billion HUF.  Meanwhile, the clientèle of Mazars continues to expand steadily with German, British, Italian and Dutch companies, in addition to our existing French clients. 

2005: The Salustro-Reydel audit team, managed by Gabriella Gábor, joins Mazars, which is now the 6th largest company specialising in audit and advisory services in Hungary.  

2006: Mazars merges with Metrum Ltd., a company under Hungarian ownership, creating Mazars Metrum Ltd.  Following the merger, Mazars strengthens its position on the Hungarian market. 

2007: Audit services are divided into two branches, forming the Audit Transaction and Advisory Services branches.  Our experts offer clients complex services starting with transaction planning through the entire transaction process, covering post-acquisition tasks in the areas of finance, tax, legal and M&A advisory for both buyers and sellers.

2008: Sándor Szmicsek is elected as an international Mazars partner, thus becoming the first Hungarian professional leader to enter the group of owners. 

2009: The current managing director of our company, Philippe Michalak Budzan, takes over from François Monville, who continues his professional career the Indonesian office of Mazars.

2010: László Karlinger joins Mazars as leader of the Financial Outsourcing branch.  In the years following his arrival, the range of Accounting and Outsourcing Services (AOS) at Mazars has shown a dynamic growth.  This year marks the beginnings of a close collaboration between the Central and Eastern European Mazars offices.  

2011: The Hungarian Transfer Pricing team becomes the centre for Global Transfer Pricing within the Mazars group. The success of our transfer pricing team under the leadership of Gabriella Nagy has been unbroken ever since.

2012: András Bagyura joins our team, whose task is supporting the professional business development activities of Mazars.

2013: The “Central and Eastern European Tax Guide”, compiled by our office, is published for the first time, including up-to-date and relevant information on the taxation in a dozen countries in the region. (In 2021, we are publishing the 9th edition of our CEE Tax Guide, which offers a comparison of 21 European countries from a taxation point of view.)

2014: With the guidance of Gabriella Bohus, one of the partners of the company, Zoltán Benedek becomes the head of the Audit and Advisory area. He is our first young professional leader who built his career entirely at Mazars and became a head of division here.

2015: This is our first year in our new office in Krisztina Palace.

2016: This year, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Mazars in Hungary. With a sales revenue of HUF 1.5 billion, Mazars is one of the most prominent advisory companies in Hungary. We are joined this year by Dániel H. Nagy, in the position of tax director.

2017: We are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Gabriella Bohus, our founding partner, at Mazars. After a flashmob performance by her colleagues at Mazars, live music was provided by Eric Fournier, France’s ambassador in Hungary, and his orchestra.  

The TP team of our office organizes the 10th Annual Mazars' Transfer Pricing Conference in Stockholm, with nearly 60 experts arriving from 30 countries.  

2018: The growth of our AOS business line is unbroken. In the interest of serving our expanding customer portfolio and providing a growing range of services, we also strengthen our organisation: Dávid Szegő joins our team and the management team as Head of AOS.

The dynamic development of Mazars is becoming more and more spectacular not only on the domestic market, but also at group level. Our Managing Director, Philippe Michalak Budzan, is appointed as head of the CEE region together with the managing director of the Czech Mazars office, and our colleague, András Bagyura also receives regional responsibility as Head of Business Development of the CEE region.

Starting in 2018, Mazars is the patron of the Prix Hungarica Prize, founded by the friends of the Hungarian Institute in Paris.

2019: Not only our professional businesses, but also our support areas are constantly developing. This year we elevate our Employer Branding strategy and efforts to a new level, thanks to which two years later we also win HRKOMM Awards. Máté Lendvai joins us as regional CEE IT director, so not only the IT development of the Hungarian office receives new impetus, but our regional engagement becomes more spectacular again.

In April we celebrate the 10th anniversary of our current managing director, Philippe. We have reached far under his leadership in the domestic market and at group level. We are proud to have developed into a company of 150 people and more than HUF 2.1 billion in revenue.

2020: This year, the COVID19 pandemics worldwide overwrites all previous plans in the lives of most companies. We are proud to be able to fulfil our most important goals: to protect the health of our colleagues, to preserve our jobs, and to serve our clients at the usual standard, even under difficult circumstances.

Even this year does not go by without a joyous event in the history of Mazars. In September, a new, independent professional area is added to our office as we create our innovation business line, headed by Zoltán Betyák.  

In October, the Mazars brand is renewed: we participate in a successful and inspiring global image change project, implemented jointly with the Mazars offices across 90 countries around the world.

Our colleague Zoltán Benedek reaches a peak in his professional career, as he becomes an international Mazars Partner in 2020. His appointment is the recognition by the Mazars Group of fifteen years of his effective work and the successes achieved as the head of our Audit and Advisory business line.

2021: This year we celebrate our 30th anniversary in Hungary. With a sales revenue of HUF 2.5 billion, Mazars is one of the leading advisory companies in Hungary. Our main objective is unchanged: we strive to contribute to the creation of the economic foundations of a fair and prosperous world. We are committed to supporting our clients’ business development, and our goal is to support their operation with tailor-made advice and professional guidance.

2021 brings renewal again in our company’s life, as after 7 years we move to a new office. The time has come for us to set up our headquarters in an environment of even higher quality than before, and so we move to a category “A+” office building offering environmentally friendly technology and supporting the development of an innovative working environment. We look forward to welcoming you in “Váci Greens” office building from September!