Florentino Pérez

Florentino Pérez Rodríguez ( born March 8, 1947 in Madrid ) is a Spanish businessman ( and shareholder inter alia, the construction company ACS). He is known internationally as president of Real Madrid football club.

Biography

Pérez is an engineer Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros of de Caminos, Canales y Puerto Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and has lectured as a professor in physical- technical base of knowledge.

During the Franco era, he was between 1973 and 1976 General of the Spanish Association for the road sector. In 1976 he went to the Urban Environment and Construction Administration of Madrid.

In 1979, he joined the centrist Unión de Centro Democrático ( UCD, Union of the Democratic Centre ) of the then Prime Minister, Adolfo Suárez, where he was temporarily elected as a member of the City Council of Madrid, to later as Director General of Transport infrastructure of the national Ministry of Transport, Tourism and communication function. In 1981 he was appointed Vice- President of the Institute for reform and agricultural development of the national Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. After the defeat of UCD in the parliamentary elections in 1982, he gave up this function. After the dissolution of UCD, he joined the moderate conservative Partido reform Ista Democrático (PRD ), whose Secretary General, he was and presented himself as a candidate in the parliamentary elections in 1986.

Role as an entrepreneur

1983 Pérez was appointed vice-president of the construction company Padrós SA. For the price of a symbolic Peseta he bought the bankrupt construction company that he made the cornerstone of his Bauimperiums. In 1991 he joined the Board of Directors of Société auxiliary division d'Entreprises (SAE ), a French construction company, which belonged to OCISA group of construction companies. The following year he was appointed President and a Director of the OCISA. Pérez is one of the main shareholders of OCISA, but also president of the Edificio Balcon and the Sociedad Española de Montajes Industriales y de Construcciones Padrós, which also belongs to OCISA. 1993 Pérez was elected president of OCP Construcciones SA and Sociedad Española de Montajes Industriales de Electricidad SA Cobra.

In 1997 he was appointed director of the construction company Actividades de Construcciones y Servicios ( Grupo ACS), which was formed through the merger of the two construction companies OCP and Ginés Navarro y. ACS is active in about 50 countries around the world with approximately 120,000 employees. As president of the ACS, he was honored for his professional conversion by the magazine Actualidad Económica with the annual award of the best entrepreneur. The long-lasting, strong construction boom in Spain, where in 2006 alone, 860,000 homes so many homes were built in Spain, taken together, as in the same period in France, the UK and Germany, supported his success with the market leader in Spain's construction groups. ACS is also engaged in real estate and telecommunications business, as well as toll highways; ACS has since been the main shareholder in the second and third placed Spanish energy companies Iberdrola and Unión Fenosa (now sold to Gas Natural ). With 1.3 billion euros ACS bought in early 2007 with 25% of the largest German construction group Hochtief.

With an estimated personal fortune of 1.9 billion euros Pérez was first performed in 2007 at number 538 of the list of the richest people in the world by Forbes magazine. The prestigious business magazine Harvard Business Review chose him in 2010 to the 37th place in the list of 50 most successful CEOs in the world.

Role in football

In his first candidacy to the presidency of Real Madrid Pérez defeated in February 1995 against Ramón Mendoza with 700 votes.

In July 2000, he ran again for the presidency of Real Madrid, where he won with 16 469 votes against 13,302 votes for the opposition candidate Lorenzo Sanz, who had hoped because of the successful European competitions in 1998 and 2000 to be re-elected. However, Perez focused his criticism of the previous Board, as early as 1995, on the mismanagement of the club. 2004 Pérez was re-elected with 94.2 %. During his presidency, with the € 270 million debt-ridden football club has been economically rehabilitated, while the sports star of the club no longer so clearly shone. In May 2001, the training ground in the center of Madrid for 480 million euros was sold to the company OHL, Repsol, Sacyr Vallehermoso Mutua Madrileña and who built the high-rise complex Cuatro Torres Business Area there.

Stars such as Zinédine Zidane, Luís Figo, David Beckham, Michael Owen, Ronaldo or Robinho were during the first phase called " Galactic Era" obliged announced in the Pérez to undertake each season another international star. Real Madrid was División 2001 and 2003 Spanish Champion in the Primera and 2002 winner of the Champions League and the World Cup. Pérez left the new Ciudad Deportiva of Real Madrid set up, the art training center in the world and realized a number of improvements at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, which he had completely modernize.

One of his most controversial decisions was the rejection of the extension for coach Vicente del Bosque and captain Fernando Hierro, immediately after they had won the Spanish Cup in 2003. In the judgment of many football connoisseurs, however, the confrontation between Perez and the defensive midfielder Claude Makélélé was crucial: As Makélélé with the support of Zidane, Raúl, Steve McManaman and Fernando Morientes asked for a contract improvement, Pérez was accrues him, he sat ultimately on the transfer list, sold him. against Chelsea and moved in retrospect forth about its performance With Makélélé but lost the balance between offense and defense at Real Madrid. However, Pérez was possible to keep undaunted rather offensive by forces out.

On 27 February 2006, he resigned because of poor athletic development as president of Real Madrid. His resignation was unexpected and surprising, though understandable in the club slipped because of the severe crisis after three years without sporting success, which had not happened for fifty years. A year after his resignation, his father died, Don Eduardo Pérez at the age of 90 years.

Since 1 June 2009, he is re-elected president of Real Madrid, after all the other candidates could not muster the required equity of 57 million euros. Thus he comes to his second term, which is expected to last until 31 May 2013. Already committed within the first two months in office Pérez stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema, Raúl Albiol and Xabi Alonso.