And it is this group which, in partnership with the Belgian Citymesh, launched Digi Belgium to shake up the Belgian telecoms market, which is known to be expensive. However, although Digi vans are roaming the streets of our capital to install fiber, commercial offers have not yet been presented. The promise to arrive “this summer” was finally abandoned at the end of September. Belgian consumers therefore remain hungry.
First broken promise for the new operator Digi, forced to delay its launch: “We had some problems in Brussels”
But Digi takes the time, anyway. It is almost the antonym of Free, the French operator founded by Xavier Niel a few years after Digi, which is growing relatively quickly internationally. Digi is therefore launching slowly. First in Romania in 1993, then in Hungary in 1998, then only in Spain in 2008, in Italy in 2010 and in Portugal in 2020. The year 2024 must therefore be that of Belgium.
If the story of Zoltan Teszari almost seems to be a long, quiet river, Digi has still experienced some small upheavals.
Businessman “force tranquille”
Zoltan Teszari, unlike Xavier Niel, is extremely discreet. No intervention in the media. No private information leaking. No rich lifestyle exposed to the public. And no direct “clashes” with its competitors. He remains in the shadows.
We nevertheless know that he was a judo champion and that he was born in 1970 in Oradea, a Romanian city a stone’s throw from Hungary, where his family is from.
We can almost only imagine, with the few elements we have, that the man is a “quiet” businessman.
But like Bernard Tapie, he tried a bit of everything, before finding his way: selling ice cream and wafers (not like Tapie), electronic components (like Tapie), and others. It was finally around the age of 23 that he entered the world of telecoms. A bet won. From now on, he would be at the head of a fortune of 800 million euros and would be the fifth richest person in Romania, according to a Forbes ranking of 2022.
He would be at the head of a fortune of 800 million euros and would be the fifth richest person in Romania.
The “darker” side?
If the story of Zoltan Teszari seems to be a long, quiet river, Digi has still experienced some small upheavals. In 2017, the year of its IPO, some Digi executives – including the one who has been CEO since 2015, Serghei Bulgac – were suspected of corruption with the Romanian Professional Football League in a story of television rights to broadcast matches .
“We don’t do this just anyhow”: are telecom operators really going to have to withdraw their fiber in Brussels?
The CEO of Digi was then accused by the DNA (Romania’s national anti-corruption directorate) for the crime of money laundering. “We reaffirm our willingness to cooperate in the investigation“, Digi then said, specifying that “current and past management have acted appropriately and in full compliance with applicable law.” And Digi will ultimately come out of this without too many problems. Note also that the accusations of corruption had been made by Darius Valcov, close to the government and former Minister of Finance, who himself had to resign previously, in 2015… for questions of corruption.
A little later, in 2022, it was the auditor KPMG who singled out Digi. “Romanian company Digi Communications risks jeopardizing its growth in Spain and other European countries by delaying the presentation of its 2021 accounts for the fourth time“, notes KPMG, regretting this lack of clarity, which can weigh on investor confidence. Which remains a limited problem and has now been resolved.
Finally, Digi has sometimes been accused of anti-competitive practices, overly aggressive pricing policies (obviously, it’s low-cost, it’s its business model), but the company seems to be falling through the cracks and behind it, its founder. , leads his boat. It remains to be seen how it will behave on Belgian waters and the different regulations of our dear country.
Some key dates:
– 1970: birth of Zoltan Teszari in Oradea, in western Romania.
– 1993: Foundation of Digi under the name Romtelecom Communications Services (RTS), active from 1994.
– 2004: the name “Digi” is adopted.
– 2008: launch in Spain, followed by Italy in 2010, Portugal in 2020 and Belgium soon.
– 2015: Zoltan Teszari hands over the CEO position to Serghei Bulgac, but remains very active within Digi.
