The Spanish families behind the Madrid-based, El Corte Inglés, Europes largest department store chain by sales. Originally founded in 1940 by Ramón Areces Rodriguez and Cesar Rodriguez Gonzalez as a tailor shop, the retailer grew both its products and locations. Areces transformed the company into its corporate entity, El Corte Inglés, S.A., in 1940. He became Chairman of the company after César Rodríguez’s death in 1966.
Rodríguez appointed his nephew, Isidoro Álvarez as the company’s director when he was just 24. Álvarez would advance to Managing Director 7 years later, and Board Chairman after Rodríguez’s passing in 1989. Álvarez is widely considered the architect behind the company’s retail ascension in Europe, driven by its expansion into supermarkets, insurance, travel and convenience stores. At the time of his death in 2014, Isidoro Álvarez was estimated to be worth $1.5 billion.
Álvarez’s nephew, Dimas Gimeno was made the company’s Chairman in 2014; however control of Álvarez’s 22 per cent stake in El Corte Inglés went to his daughters: Marta and Cristina Alvarez Guil. Gimeno’s leadership polarised the families leading to his executive powers being stripped in 2018 by Álvarez’s daughters, who remain the company’s largest single shareholders.
