TWO of Spain's largest high-street banks are reported to be in merger talks, potentially resulting in the joint entity being the second-biggest in the country in terms of share capital.
Who's who on the Forbes list: Spain's 100 wealthiest revealed
03/11/2022
NAMES have been released for the richest residents in Spain, including Spaniards living abroad but with assets in the country, with long-running 'winner' Amancio Ortega still outstripping his compatriots by a considerable margin.
The nation's greatest fortunes are largely concentrated within just a few families, and are almost entirely the result of being a company owner or chair, or as a shareholder in some of Spain's biggest businesses.
Inherited wealth does not figure greatly, but inherited companies do – family firms starting off as humble trading posts with spouses, children and siblings working the shop floor and just one small premises, but which expand over decades until they become national or even global household names, feature heavily in the ranking. In some cases, it's the original founder who has amassed the billions, although in others, it may be the second or third generation who is behind the far-reaching growth.
More distant family becoming involved, such as cousins, second cousins, nieces and nephews, also seem to play a key rôle in turning a corner shop or a modest sewing studio into an international empire.
And neither royalty nor politicians are found within this year's Forbes top 100 fortunes in Spain – after all, the reigning monarch, King Felipe VI, has just €2.57 million to his name, does not own property, and keeps nearly 88% of it in bank deposits and investment accounts.
The top five remain unchanged from previous years, and four of them have lost sizeable sums in the past year through factors affecting the global economy, although they all still own in excess of €3bn.
Women make up just 41 of the 100, although some entire families, or groups of brothers and sisters, appear as one entry.
For the first time ever, Forbes Spain has named the 75 richest women in the country, of whom 34 do not make the top 100.
These 75 women hold a combined wealth of €37.45 billion, or an average of half a billion each, compared with the 75 richest men in Spain, whose assets total €116.4 billion.
This means female fortunes are typically between 1.7 and three times lower than those of their male counterparts.
But Forbes lists are not entirely a man's world – for yet another year, the second-richest Spaniard is female.
The country's richest resident: Amancio Ortega Gaona
Spain's wealthiest man needs little introduction – he and his wife Rosalía Mera started a humble tailor's studio in their native Galicia, which would go on to become Inditex, a high-street fashion empire with brands instantly recognisable on every continent.
Zara is the most international label, but others which are huge in Spanish shopping centres and have some presence outside the country include the cheaper, younger Bershka and Stradivarius, the casuals chain Pull&Bear, the mid-upper high-street labels Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe, underwear brand Oysho, quality interior design store Zara Home, and the newest addition at less than a decade old, the ultra-cheap and more functional Lefties.
Inditex focuses on affordable, timeless pieces, many of which lean heavily towards young fashions, and the formula seems to have worked: With €53.5 billion to his name, Amancio, 86, has assets equivalent to the entire fortune of the first 27 on the Forbes list and nearly 10 times the wealth of Spain's second-richest resident – his eldest daughter.
Sandra Ortega Mera, Spain's second-wealthiest inhabitant
A psychology graduate from Santiago de Compostela University, Sandra, 54, is Amancio Ortega's daughter by his first wife and co-founder of Inditex, the late Rosalía Mera.
In reality, her holding in Inditex is only 5.053% - her investments in other corporations are where the bulk of her fortune comes from.
Rosp Corunna, Sandra's holding company, owns her Inditex shares.
Also, she owns 5% of Pharma Mar and 30% of Room Mate, the hotel group set up and run by Kike Sarasola.
Sandra lives in Oleiros, in the family's native province of A Coruña, in the far north-western region of Galicia, and she has three children – Martiño, Antía and Uxía.
Her husband, Pablo Gómez, is also on the board of directors at Inditex.
Sandra's fortune of €5.4bn makes her the second-richest resident in Spain and the country's wealthiest woman.
Rest of the top five
Approximately half the wealth of Spain's 100 richest residents is in the hands of the country's Forbes top five, with Rafael del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo third. The owner of rail and road transport infrastructure firm Ferrovial is worth €3.8bn, closely followed by Juan Roig Alfonso, 73, owner and founder of supermarket chain Mercadona, with €3.4bn.
Roig started out with a small, family-run food shop in the province of Valencia, and now has branches everywhere in the country, with at least one in practically every town.
Mercadona's capital remains entirely in family hands and has never floated on the stock market, and Roig's wife, Hortensia Herrero, is Spain's 11th-richest resident and fourth-richest woman, with assets totalling €1.9bn.
Hortensia owns just over a quarter of Mercadona's shares, and Roig owns half.
Fifth-wealthiest in Spain is Juan Carlos Escotet, chairman of banking entity Banesco and of Abanca, where he is the main shareholder, with €3.2bn – the only one of the top five whose fortune has actually increased rather than decreased since 2021.
Whilst Escotet's wealth has gone up by 18%, the average Forbes list top 100 entry has lost around 7% in the past year – largely due to the impact of the conflict in Ukraine, inflation, and raw material and energy price rises, together with recent hikes in interest rates, including in the Eurozone.
This equates to a total reduction in the wealth of the richest 100 of €143bn, or an average per person of €286,031 a day since November 2021.
Top 10 wealthiest are among 'biggest employers'
Forbes Spain chairman and editor Andrés Rodríguez says the nation's richest inhabitants, especially in the top 10, are often linked to or owners of the companies which provide the highest numbers of jobs – and this is certainly true of number six, Daniel Maté, major shareholder in the mining company Glencore and owner of €3.1bn, leapfrogging Juan Abelló, 80, and pushing him down to seventh place. Over the course of the past 35 years or so, Abelló has made major investments in banks, aeronautical and rail infrastructure manufacturers, pharmaceutical industries, and even Aston Martin motors, Telepizza, Alliance Laundry, Germaine de Capuccini cosmetics, and Ingesport.
Possibly the 'rebound effect' of the pandemic-related restrictions coming to an end helped propel Miguel Fluxà Rosselló from 27th to eighth place – another major employer, he owns the Iberostar hotel and resort chain, which would have had very little activity in 2020 and limited activity in 2021.
In fact, his turn-of-the-decade fortune of €1.5bn dropped to €1.2bn last year, and has now more than doubled to €2.7bn.
Alicia Koplowitz is only the second woman to appear in the top 10 – Sandra Ortega is the only one in the top five – with €2.4bn. The daughter of Jewish Polish businessman Ernest Koplowitz Sternberg and the seventh Marchioness of Peñalver, Esther María Romero de Juseu y Armenteros, Alicia is one of Spain's largest private investors. She owns, and is chairwoman of, the Omega Capital group, and first began to appear on 'rich lists' in 1998 when she sold her 28.8% holding in the services company FCC to her sister Esther for €798 million.
Rafael del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo's sister, María del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo, is Spain's third-richest woman and 10th-richest resident, with €2.3bn – the Ferrovial family business was set up by their late father, Rafael del Pino y Moreno, and they along with their other siblings run his eponymous foundation.
To this end, the surname is found several times in the Forbes list: Rafael Junior's twin, Leopoldo del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo (number 14, with €1.7bn), Joaquín del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo (number 29, with €950m), and Fernando del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo (number 92, with €300m)
How to get into Spain's Forbes list top 20 richest
Clothes, food and drink, sports, and art seem to be where the most money is found, if you're in business, although it's all relative. Literally: According to Forbes Spain editor and chairman Andrés Rodríguez, it's long-running enterprises that pass down through generations, as opposed to innovative and ground-breaking new ventures, that are more likely to make you a billionaire.
“It's more profitable being the owner of Inditex than of Facebook,” Rodríguez reveals, pointing out that it is 'very hard' to get into Spain's wealthiest 100 as a newcomer.
Spain is a country of family fortunes and inherited businesses, with few, if any, technology giants or huge, emerging corporations, Rodríguez recalls.
One exception to the family trade as a source of wealth is Isak Andic Ermay, who is Turkish but has lived in the Barcelona area for more than 52 years – but his company is a direct rival for Inditex. Budget high-street chain Mango is every bit as famous as Zara and is now expanding its lines, having worked hard to bring itself back into profit after years of major losses. In the annual Merco 'Best reputation' list, Mango rocketed from number 77 in 2021 to number 54 in 2022; this year, it dropped out of the list of Europe's 500 biggest brands, but from being €35m in debt at the end of 2018, the firm turned itself around and was €21m in credit by the end of 2019.
Isak Andic has now risen to 12th-richest in Spain, from 14th last year and 17th in 2020, with assets totalling €1.9bn.
Also in clothing, Alberto Palatchi founded the wedding dress chain store Pronovias, making him 16th-richest in Spain – recovering his 2020 position which dropped four places in 2021 – with €1.5bn in assets.
After Mango's owner, 13th-richest is Real Madrid FC's chairman, Florentino Pérez, with €1.8bn – although his wealth also comes from his being chairman and CEO of civil engineering and construction firm, ACS.
Following Leopoldo del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo at 14, then Spain's fifth-wealthiest woman, Coca-Cola chairwoman Sol Daurella Comadrán, at 15, and Palatchi, Tomás Olivo is 17th. Owner of property investment company General de Galerías Comerciales, he holds €1.5bn in assets, slightly more than former gaming and casino company owner Manuel Lao, at number 18 with €1.4bn.
Back in 2020, Lao sold off most of the firm, Cirsa, which made his home town of Matadepera the wealthiest municipality in Spain for that year based upon the mean average income per head.
Number 19 is in fact the elder brother of Spain's third-richest resident – Fernando Roig Alfonso, whose brother Juan founded and owns Mercadona, has made his fortune through tiles and sport.
Fernando, 75, does own 9% of the supermarket chain's shares, but his assets - €1.3bn - are mainly through being owner of the tile company Pamesa, and his wages as chairman of Villarreal CF football club.
Closing the top 20 is art collector Carmen Thyssen, who is only the sixth woman to appear on the list so far.
Spain's 10 wealthiest women
Although one tends to think of the likes of Banco Santander chairwoman Ana Botín, or Inditex heiress Marta Ortega, as probably being among the richest women in the nation – chairwomen of the top two most valuable brands in Spain, in financial terms - they do not even figure in the roll-call: After Hortensia Herrero, the fifth-wealthiest female in Spain is Sol Daurella Comadrán, with €1.7bn – her cousin, Carmen Daurella Aguilera, is eighth-richest woman in Spain with €850m – sixth-richest female is Carmen Thyssen, owner of the Thyssen-Bornemizsa Museum, one of Madrid's 'big three' art galleries, with €1.3bn, and number seven is Helena Revoredo Delvecchio, the Argentine-Spanish owner of Prosegur intruder alarm central systems, with €1bn.
The last two women in the top 10 have a joint entry with family members - Mercedes Entrecanales Franco, co-chair of the construction and development firm Acciona, is Spain's ninth-wealthiest woman with just under €850m and shares her slot with her brother Javier, and Carmen Riu Güell, co-owner of the Riu Hotels chain with her brother Luis and worth €650m as a pair, completes the top 10 female fortunes.
The fact that 30% of Spain's 10 wealthiest women are called Carmen is unlikely to bear any relation – perhaps it's worth changing your name just in case. On the other hand, Sol Daurella is chairwoman of Coca-Cola, her cousin Carmen owns 4% of the firm's European arm, Carmen's sister Mercedes Daurella Aguilera (number 83 in Spain with €325m) is also a shareholder, as is Mercedes' son Alfonso Líbano Daurella (number 78 in Spain with €350m), and two of her sisters, Elena and Alicia Daurella Aguilera (a sole entry at number 93, with €300m), meaning the world's best-known fizzy drinks company might be a safer bet.
In total, nine cousins – eight of them female – own and run Coca-Cola European Partners.
Top 28 have at least €1bn; bottom 10 have €300m or less
The total wealth held by Spain's richest 100 comes to €69.3bn – of which 48.6% is owned by the top five – with the smallest fortune on the list being the €275m in the hands of Marc, Antonio, Daniel and Mariano Puig Guasch, who own the family perfume and cosmetics giant, Puig Group, which operates under licences of massive global brands such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Adolfo Domínguez, Dries van Noten, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Penhaligon's, and Paco Rabanne.
Only the bottom 10 have €300m or less in assets – including Adolfo Utor at number 96, chairman of the cross-Mediterranean passenger ferry company Baleària, which has its base in Dénia (northern Alicante province).
The first 28 on the list have assets of a minimum of 10 figures – a European billion, or a thousand million.
Numbers 21 and 22 are Alberto Cortina and his cousin Alberto Alcocer, who co-own Alcor Financial Corporation and have around €1.2bn each; steel industry tycoon José María Aristrain, with €1.1bn, is at number 23; Francisco Riberas Mera, joint owner of the steel company Gonvarri with his brother Juan María Riberas Mera – chairman of motor manufacturing giant Gestamp and sole director of construction company Glenbrock Investment – is at number 24 with €1.1bn whilst Juan María sits just behind him, at 25 with €1bn; Prosegur chairwoman Helena Revoredo comes in at 26, and is followed by Álvaro Entrecanales Domecq, with €1bn, an artist and shareholder in Acciona and brother of its CEO, José Manuel, who is at number 42 with €700m, and Gabriel Escarrer and family, founders of the Meliá Hotels International group and jointly owners of €1bn.
Where the richest live
Madrid is where the highest number of Forbes top 100 entries come from, or reside, irrespective of gender – a total of 16 women who are multi-millionaires live in the capital region, with an aggregate fortune of €10.95bn; overall, 35% of the ranking was born in or is based in Madrid, and are sitting on assets totalling €35.9bn, or an average of just over €1bn per head.
They include brother and sister Daniel and Nieves Entrecanales, shareholders of Acciona, at number 47 with €624m, and David Ruiz de Andrés, founder of the green power company Grenergy Renovables, at number 48, with €600m – both of whom have soared more than 20 positions in the ranking this year.
Catalunya has the second-highest number of Forbes entries – including the Daurella cousins – with 29 in total and an average wealth per head of €605m.
Galicia, the Balearic Islands, and the Comunidad Valenciana – home to the Mercadona dynasty – follow, in that order.
Only three regions, all in the north – Cantabria, La Rioja and Navarra – have no entries at all.
Sports, arts and entertainment: Do they pay off?
One might have expected premier league footballers, film stars and TV personalities, in that order, to be Spain's richest within the entertainment and leisure fields; but it turns out those three professions are not necessarily the most lucrative of all.
The nation's wealthiest sportsperson is top tennis ace Rafa Nadal who, although he has not made the Forbes 100, is only just on the margins, with €250m to his name; Spain's second-richest sporting professional is Formula 1 racing driver Fernando Alonso, with €225m.
In fact, some of the country's top footballers do not even break the €200m barrier: Former Real Madrid star Sergio Ramos, now with Paris-Saint Germain, holds €180m in assets; ex-FC Barcelona midfielder Andrés Iniesta, who plays for the Japanese J1 League team Vissel Kobe, and Manchester United goalkeeper, one-time Atlético de Madrid star David de Gea each own €125m, and Barça striker Gerard Piqué, father of pop-rocker Shakira's two sons, is worth €100m.
As for the entertainment industry, television and film do not seem to be the key routes to fortune, either. The wealthiest in this category is gallery owner Carmen Thyssen, who is 20 positions above legendary crooner Julio Iglesias – number 40, with €700m, having lost an average of €50m a year this decade.
Iglesias, 79, was at number 29 in 2020 with €800m, and dropped to 38 last year with €750m.
He currently has an unresolved paternity suit with a Valencia-born waiter, Javier Santos, 46, but has long since ceased to reside in Spain – the singer, like his son and fellow pop sensation Enrique Iglesias, lives in Miami, Florida.
Related Topics
NAMES have been released for the richest residents in Spain, including Spaniards living abroad but with assets in the country, with long-running 'winner' Amancio Ortega still outstripping his compatriots by a considerable margin.
The nation's greatest fortunes are largely concentrated within just a few families, and are almost entirely the result of being a company owner or chair, or as a shareholder in some of Spain's biggest businesses.
Inherited wealth does not figure greatly, but inherited companies do – family firms starting off as humble trading posts with spouses, children and siblings working the shop floor and just one small premises, but which expand over decades until they become national or even global household names, feature heavily in the ranking. In some cases, it's the original founder who has amassed the billions, although in others, it may be the second or third generation who is behind the far-reaching growth.
More distant family becoming involved, such as cousins, second cousins, nieces and nephews, also seem to play a key rôle in turning a corner shop or a modest sewing studio into an international empire.
And neither royalty nor politicians are found within this year's Forbes top 100 fortunes in Spain – after all, the reigning monarch, King Felipe VI, has just €2.57 million to his name, does not own property, and keeps nearly 88% of it in bank deposits and investment accounts.
The top five remain unchanged from previous years, and four of them have lost sizeable sums in the past year through factors affecting the global economy, although they all still own in excess of €3bn.
Women make up just 41 of the 100, although some entire families, or groups of brothers and sisters, appear as one entry.
For the first time ever, Forbes Spain has named the 75 richest women in the country, of whom 34 do not make the top 100.
These 75 women hold a combined wealth of €37.45 billion, or an average of half a billion each, compared with the 75 richest men in Spain, whose assets total €116.4 billion.
This means female fortunes are typically between 1.7 and three times lower than those of their male counterparts.
But Forbes lists are not entirely a man's world – for yet another year, the second-richest Spaniard is female.
The country's richest resident: Amancio Ortega Gaona
Spain's wealthiest man needs little introduction – he and his wife Rosalía Mera started a humble tailor's studio in their native Galicia, which would go on to become Inditex, a high-street fashion empire with brands instantly recognisable on every continent.
Zara is the most international label, but others which are huge in Spanish shopping centres and have some presence outside the country include the cheaper, younger Bershka and Stradivarius, the casuals chain Pull&Bear, the mid-upper high-street labels Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe, underwear brand Oysho, quality interior design store Zara Home, and the newest addition at less than a decade old, the ultra-cheap and more functional Lefties.
Inditex focuses on affordable, timeless pieces, many of which lean heavily towards young fashions, and the formula seems to have worked: With €53.5 billion to his name, Amancio, 86, has assets equivalent to the entire fortune of the first 27 on the Forbes list and nearly 10 times the wealth of Spain's second-richest resident – his eldest daughter.
Sandra Ortega Mera, Spain's second-wealthiest inhabitant
A psychology graduate from Santiago de Compostela University, Sandra, 54, is Amancio Ortega's daughter by his first wife and co-founder of Inditex, the late Rosalía Mera.
In reality, her holding in Inditex is only 5.053% - her investments in other corporations are where the bulk of her fortune comes from.
Rosp Corunna, Sandra's holding company, owns her Inditex shares.
Also, she owns 5% of Pharma Mar and 30% of Room Mate, the hotel group set up and run by Kike Sarasola.
Sandra lives in Oleiros, in the family's native province of A Coruña, in the far north-western region of Galicia, and she has three children – Martiño, Antía and Uxía.
Her husband, Pablo Gómez, is also on the board of directors at Inditex.
Sandra's fortune of €5.4bn makes her the second-richest resident in Spain and the country's wealthiest woman.
Rest of the top five
Approximately half the wealth of Spain's 100 richest residents is in the hands of the country's Forbes top five, with Rafael del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo third. The owner of rail and road transport infrastructure firm Ferrovial is worth €3.8bn, closely followed by Juan Roig Alfonso, 73, owner and founder of supermarket chain Mercadona, with €3.4bn.
Roig started out with a small, family-run food shop in the province of Valencia, and now has branches everywhere in the country, with at least one in practically every town.
Mercadona's capital remains entirely in family hands and has never floated on the stock market, and Roig's wife, Hortensia Herrero, is Spain's 11th-richest resident and fourth-richest woman, with assets totalling €1.9bn.
Hortensia owns just over a quarter of Mercadona's shares, and Roig owns half.
Fifth-wealthiest in Spain is Juan Carlos Escotet, chairman of banking entity Banesco and of Abanca, where he is the main shareholder, with €3.2bn – the only one of the top five whose fortune has actually increased rather than decreased since 2021.
Whilst Escotet's wealth has gone up by 18%, the average Forbes list top 100 entry has lost around 7% in the past year – largely due to the impact of the conflict in Ukraine, inflation, and raw material and energy price rises, together with recent hikes in interest rates, including in the Eurozone.
This equates to a total reduction in the wealth of the richest 100 of €143bn, or an average per person of €286,031 a day since November 2021.
Top 10 wealthiest are among 'biggest employers'
Forbes Spain chairman and editor Andrés Rodríguez says the nation's richest inhabitants, especially in the top 10, are often linked to or owners of the companies which provide the highest numbers of jobs – and this is certainly true of number six, Daniel Maté, major shareholder in the mining company Glencore and owner of €3.1bn, leapfrogging Juan Abelló, 80, and pushing him down to seventh place. Over the course of the past 35 years or so, Abelló has made major investments in banks, aeronautical and rail infrastructure manufacturers, pharmaceutical industries, and even Aston Martin motors, Telepizza, Alliance Laundry, Germaine de Capuccini cosmetics, and Ingesport.
Possibly the 'rebound effect' of the pandemic-related restrictions coming to an end helped propel Miguel Fluxà Rosselló from 27th to eighth place – another major employer, he owns the Iberostar hotel and resort chain, which would have had very little activity in 2020 and limited activity in 2021.
In fact, his turn-of-the-decade fortune of €1.5bn dropped to €1.2bn last year, and has now more than doubled to €2.7bn.
Alicia Koplowitz is only the second woman to appear in the top 10 – Sandra Ortega is the only one in the top five – with €2.4bn. The daughter of Jewish Polish businessman Ernest Koplowitz Sternberg and the seventh Marchioness of Peñalver, Esther María Romero de Juseu y Armenteros, Alicia is one of Spain's largest private investors. She owns, and is chairwoman of, the Omega Capital group, and first began to appear on 'rich lists' in 1998 when she sold her 28.8% holding in the services company FCC to her sister Esther for €798 million.
Rafael del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo's sister, María del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo, is Spain's third-richest woman and 10th-richest resident, with €2.3bn – the Ferrovial family business was set up by their late father, Rafael del Pino y Moreno, and they along with their other siblings run his eponymous foundation.
To this end, the surname is found several times in the Forbes list: Rafael Junior's twin, Leopoldo del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo (number 14, with €1.7bn), Joaquín del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo (number 29, with €950m), and Fernando del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo (number 92, with €300m)
How to get into Spain's Forbes list top 20 richest
Clothes, food and drink, sports, and art seem to be where the most money is found, if you're in business, although it's all relative. Literally: According to Forbes Spain editor and chairman Andrés Rodríguez, it's long-running enterprises that pass down through generations, as opposed to innovative and ground-breaking new ventures, that are more likely to make you a billionaire.
“It's more profitable being the owner of Inditex than of Facebook,” Rodríguez reveals, pointing out that it is 'very hard' to get into Spain's wealthiest 100 as a newcomer.
Spain is a country of family fortunes and inherited businesses, with few, if any, technology giants or huge, emerging corporations, Rodríguez recalls.
One exception to the family trade as a source of wealth is Isak Andic Ermay, who is Turkish but has lived in the Barcelona area for more than 52 years – but his company is a direct rival for Inditex. Budget high-street chain Mango is every bit as famous as Zara and is now expanding its lines, having worked hard to bring itself back into profit after years of major losses. In the annual Merco 'Best reputation' list, Mango rocketed from number 77 in 2021 to number 54 in 2022; this year, it dropped out of the list of Europe's 500 biggest brands, but from being €35m in debt at the end of 2018, the firm turned itself around and was €21m in credit by the end of 2019.
Isak Andic has now risen to 12th-richest in Spain, from 14th last year and 17th in 2020, with assets totalling €1.9bn.
Also in clothing, Alberto Palatchi founded the wedding dress chain store Pronovias, making him 16th-richest in Spain – recovering his 2020 position which dropped four places in 2021 – with €1.5bn in assets.
After Mango's owner, 13th-richest is Real Madrid FC's chairman, Florentino Pérez, with €1.8bn – although his wealth also comes from his being chairman and CEO of civil engineering and construction firm, ACS.
Following Leopoldo del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo at 14, then Spain's fifth-wealthiest woman, Coca-Cola chairwoman Sol Daurella Comadrán, at 15, and Palatchi, Tomás Olivo is 17th. Owner of property investment company General de Galerías Comerciales, he holds €1.5bn in assets, slightly more than former gaming and casino company owner Manuel Lao, at number 18 with €1.4bn.
Back in 2020, Lao sold off most of the firm, Cirsa, which made his home town of Matadepera the wealthiest municipality in Spain for that year based upon the mean average income per head.
Number 19 is in fact the elder brother of Spain's third-richest resident – Fernando Roig Alfonso, whose brother Juan founded and owns Mercadona, has made his fortune through tiles and sport.
Fernando, 75, does own 9% of the supermarket chain's shares, but his assets - €1.3bn - are mainly through being owner of the tile company Pamesa, and his wages as chairman of Villarreal CF football club.
Closing the top 20 is art collector Carmen Thyssen, who is only the sixth woman to appear on the list so far.
Spain's 10 wealthiest women
Although one tends to think of the likes of Banco Santander chairwoman Ana Botín, or Inditex heiress Marta Ortega, as probably being among the richest women in the nation – chairwomen of the top two most valuable brands in Spain, in financial terms - they do not even figure in the roll-call: After Hortensia Herrero, the fifth-wealthiest female in Spain is Sol Daurella Comadrán, with €1.7bn – her cousin, Carmen Daurella Aguilera, is eighth-richest woman in Spain with €850m – sixth-richest female is Carmen Thyssen, owner of the Thyssen-Bornemizsa Museum, one of Madrid's 'big three' art galleries, with €1.3bn, and number seven is Helena Revoredo Delvecchio, the Argentine-Spanish owner of Prosegur intruder alarm central systems, with €1bn.
The last two women in the top 10 have a joint entry with family members - Mercedes Entrecanales Franco, co-chair of the construction and development firm Acciona, is Spain's ninth-wealthiest woman with just under €850m and shares her slot with her brother Javier, and Carmen Riu Güell, co-owner of the Riu Hotels chain with her brother Luis and worth €650m as a pair, completes the top 10 female fortunes.
The fact that 30% of Spain's 10 wealthiest women are called Carmen is unlikely to bear any relation – perhaps it's worth changing your name just in case. On the other hand, Sol Daurella is chairwoman of Coca-Cola, her cousin Carmen owns 4% of the firm's European arm, Carmen's sister Mercedes Daurella Aguilera (number 83 in Spain with €325m) is also a shareholder, as is Mercedes' son Alfonso Líbano Daurella (number 78 in Spain with €350m), and two of her sisters, Elena and Alicia Daurella Aguilera (a sole entry at number 93, with €300m), meaning the world's best-known fizzy drinks company might be a safer bet.
In total, nine cousins – eight of them female – own and run Coca-Cola European Partners.
Top 28 have at least €1bn; bottom 10 have €300m or less
The total wealth held by Spain's richest 100 comes to €69.3bn – of which 48.6% is owned by the top five – with the smallest fortune on the list being the €275m in the hands of Marc, Antonio, Daniel and Mariano Puig Guasch, who own the family perfume and cosmetics giant, Puig Group, which operates under licences of massive global brands such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Adolfo Domínguez, Dries van Noten, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Penhaligon's, and Paco Rabanne.
Only the bottom 10 have €300m or less in assets – including Adolfo Utor at number 96, chairman of the cross-Mediterranean passenger ferry company Baleària, which has its base in Dénia (northern Alicante province).
The first 28 on the list have assets of a minimum of 10 figures – a European billion, or a thousand million.
Numbers 21 and 22 are Alberto Cortina and his cousin Alberto Alcocer, who co-own Alcor Financial Corporation and have around €1.2bn each; steel industry tycoon José María Aristrain, with €1.1bn, is at number 23; Francisco Riberas Mera, joint owner of the steel company Gonvarri with his brother Juan María Riberas Mera – chairman of motor manufacturing giant Gestamp and sole director of construction company Glenbrock Investment – is at number 24 with €1.1bn whilst Juan María sits just behind him, at 25 with €1bn; Prosegur chairwoman Helena Revoredo comes in at 26, and is followed by Álvaro Entrecanales Domecq, with €1bn, an artist and shareholder in Acciona and brother of its CEO, José Manuel, who is at number 42 with €700m, and Gabriel Escarrer and family, founders of the Meliá Hotels International group and jointly owners of €1bn.
Where the richest live
Madrid is where the highest number of Forbes top 100 entries come from, or reside, irrespective of gender – a total of 16 women who are multi-millionaires live in the capital region, with an aggregate fortune of €10.95bn; overall, 35% of the ranking was born in or is based in Madrid, and are sitting on assets totalling €35.9bn, or an average of just over €1bn per head.
They include brother and sister Daniel and Nieves Entrecanales, shareholders of Acciona, at number 47 with €624m, and David Ruiz de Andrés, founder of the green power company Grenergy Renovables, at number 48, with €600m – both of whom have soared more than 20 positions in the ranking this year.
Catalunya has the second-highest number of Forbes entries – including the Daurella cousins – with 29 in total and an average wealth per head of €605m.
Galicia, the Balearic Islands, and the Comunidad Valenciana – home to the Mercadona dynasty – follow, in that order.
Only three regions, all in the north – Cantabria, La Rioja and Navarra – have no entries at all.
Sports, arts and entertainment: Do they pay off?
One might have expected premier league footballers, film stars and TV personalities, in that order, to be Spain's richest within the entertainment and leisure fields; but it turns out those three professions are not necessarily the most lucrative of all.
The nation's wealthiest sportsperson is top tennis ace Rafa Nadal who, although he has not made the Forbes 100, is only just on the margins, with €250m to his name; Spain's second-richest sporting professional is Formula 1 racing driver Fernando Alonso, with €225m.
In fact, some of the country's top footballers do not even break the €200m barrier: Former Real Madrid star Sergio Ramos, now with Paris-Saint Germain, holds €180m in assets; ex-FC Barcelona midfielder Andrés Iniesta, who plays for the Japanese J1 League team Vissel Kobe, and Manchester United goalkeeper, one-time Atlético de Madrid star David de Gea each own €125m, and Barça striker Gerard Piqué, father of pop-rocker Shakira's two sons, is worth €100m.
As for the entertainment industry, television and film do not seem to be the key routes to fortune, either. The wealthiest in this category is gallery owner Carmen Thyssen, who is 20 positions above legendary crooner Julio Iglesias – number 40, with €700m, having lost an average of €50m a year this decade.
Iglesias, 79, was at number 29 in 2020 with €800m, and dropped to 38 last year with €750m.
He currently has an unresolved paternity suit with a Valencia-born waiter, Javier Santos, 46, but has long since ceased to reside in Spain – the singer, like his son and fellow pop sensation Enrique Iglesias, lives in Miami, Florida.
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