Jaime Castellanos leaves the shareholding of the Coca-Cola bottler

Shareholder movements in Olive Partners, the company that groups the Iberian bottlers of Coca-Cola. Jaime Castellanos has left its shareholding, as this newspaper has been able to confirm. Until now, Castellanos (who, despite being Basque, is one of the most important names in Madrid business) owned just under 1% of the group’s capital and also held a seat on the board of administration The main shareholder of this company is the Catalan company Cobega, which already controls more than 56% of the capital.

Olive Partners is a little known company but of capital importance. It is through this company that Cobega, owned by the Daurella family and based in Esplugues de Llobregat, controls Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, the world’s leading bottler of this soft drink.

The second main shareholder of Olive Partners (formerly known as Coca-Cola Iberian Partners) is Empresas Comerciales e Industriales Valencianas, with 21%.

Castellanos was a minority shareholder in Olive Partners, but has pocketed several tens of millions from the sale of his stake, although the exact amount has not been made public. “He has taken the money and is disinvesting”, is all the sources consulted say, who speculate that he will possibly use the money to start some other business project.

Castellanos’ business career is extensive. He was president, CEO and one of the main shareholders of Recoletos, which owned historic Spanish capitals such as Brand, Expansion o teva. In 2007, the group was sold for 1.1 billion euros. It was only three years ago that he and other entrepreneurs had bought it and, in that time alone, they obtained capital gains of 350 million.

His business activity has followed the advice of companies Áreas or Acciona or Moove Cars, a vehicle company with a VTC license. He was also president of insurance broker Willis Iberia, a company that sued him for unfair competition when Castellanos left to create his own company, Asterra. This summer, however, the courts exonerated him of all blame.