Gotham’s detailed accounting of Grifols ultimately precipitated a shift away from the executive line of the founding family that gave the Catalan pharmaceutical company its name. Independent directors and creditors could apply pressure to try to remove the Grifols from management after Gotham questioned the relationship between the company and Scranton, one of the family’s means through which it maintains its equity stake. The publication of the analysis on January 9 brought its price down in those days by more than 40%.
Victor Grifols Deu, Raymond Grifols Roura and Albert Grifols Coma-Cro are leaving their management positions and leadership status on the board of directors. They will remain on the body as their own directors. due to the almost 30% shares the family owns through various companies. A few weeks ago, Victor Grifols Roura, who led the company until 2017 and is now honorary president, already left the board of directors.
In addition to Grifols, the focus remains on large listed and unlisted groups such as Celsa, Abengoa, OHL, Duro Felguera and FCC.
The Grifols Affair revives recent episodes, not so much in the Spanish business community, each with its own nuances, but where agents external to the companies forced the founding families out of control. A situation that arises almost without exception in conditions of extreme financial difficulties and/or reputational crises; and exactly the same when the second or third generation is already at the helm.
In recent years, the separation of powers has increased.
In addition to Grifols, the focus remains on large groups, listed and unlisted, such as Celsa, Abengoa, OHL, Duro Felguera or FCC, in which banks, funds or even public institutions have led to the “expulsion” of families of executives. Each of them has its own cases.
The closest example in the calendar is “Selsa”. The steel company’s failure to repay debt led to the Rubiraltas, the steel company’s founders, being released from capital by a group of creditors led by Attestor and Deutsche Bank, Cross Ocean, SVP, Anchorange and GoldenTree. Process approved The Spanish government came to the aid of the Catalan company through the Sepi Foundation created during a pandemic. Moncloa set this condition when attracting a Spanish partner with a 20% share.
In the case of Selsa, financial problems reached such an extent that Rubiraltas were left without options. So this is a completely different scenario, at least for now, from Grifols’ scenario. As already mentioned, in the pharmaceutical company the family began to distance itself from management two years ago and has now completed its exit. This Monday, the firm attempted to remove the changes from the Gotham report.
in a statement sent to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV): “These changes are part of a long-planned and carefully developed strategy for the development of corporate governance of Grifols.” At the very least, Daniel Yu’s Gotham report would speed that up.
Before Celsa, Abengoa was involved in another of the biggest business failures in Spanish history. In 2015, the debt of the Seville engineering industry became unsustainable. The salvation was the increase in capital by 650 million euros. But to do this, in September of the same year, banks demanded that Felipe Benhumea, the son of the firm’s founder and later executive president, was removed from the board of directors. The successive restructuring of the group diluted the Benjumea family and other Andalusian sagas, who at that time controlled more than half of the company, until its complete disappearance. Benjumea has various disputes with Santander and HSBC, as well as with the administrators who succeeded him in the company today integrated into Coxabengoa.
In the construction sector, Juan Miguel Villar Mir He also became a victim of external pressure in the former OHL (today’s OHL). Businessman, the founder and first shareholder left his post as executive president of the construction company in June 2016. after the attacks that occurred in Mexico due to the accounting of highways and their relationship with the authorities of the country, as well as after a capital increase of 1 billion euros due to their financial problems. His first-born son, Juan Villar-Mir, was named president, but without executive functions. The bank demanded separation of ownership and management, but Villar Mir somehow retained decisive weight – he elected successive general directors. Besieged by debt from both the OHL and its holding company, he completed his exit from the construction company in 2023, although the team had been owned for three years by Mexican brothers Luis and Mauricio Amodio.
In Duro Felguera, Angel Antonio del Valle, President and CEO of the Asturian engineering company at the request of the Arrojo family, was forced to resign in 2017 amid accusations from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office and the serious economic situation in the company. And at the FCC, many years ago, Koplowitz familyThe debt-ridden company had no choice but to sell it to Mexican Carlos Slim.