Monday, April 3, 2023, 00:04
The emptied Spain was the scene of a great leap last year. With an estimated fortune of 450 million, Ricardo Leal Cordobés managed to go from 86th place in which he debuted in 2021 to 60th on the list of the richest in Spain published by Forbes. And he did it from Jerez de los Caballeros, the town of Badajoz with ten thousand inhabitants where he was born 68 years ago and where he founded in 1981 Cristian Lay (CL)the largest industrial conglomerate in Extremadura with 26 companies and production centers in twelve countries.
The son of a bricklayer, he started working as a jeweler’s apprentice when he was only fourteen years old. At the end of the seventies he fulfilled his first dream; open his own jewelry. This establishment, in Jerez de los Caballeros itself, would soon be followed by another in Oliva de la Frontera. There he understood that he should try to skip the intermediaries and produce his own pieces instead of dedicating himself only to selling. Having taken that step with the creation of Sikno, he prepared the next one. Traveling with the samples was uncomfortable and insecure, so he opted to photograph his entire production and carry only the cataloga sales channel that, in addition to allowing her to place her creations in other jewelry stores, directly opened the door to the homes of her potential customers.
Or clients, rather, because it also became clear from very early on that its most profitable audience was women. Hence, with the constitution of Cristian Lay in 1981, the first thing he did was extend his interests to fashion accessories (manufactured, among others, for Inditex), cosmetics (under the Perseida Belleza brand, which he makes, for example Veckia products from El Corte Inglés), high-end jewelery and travel (Laytours).
But, since he does not like to put all his eggs in the same basket (or in the same public), he immediately began a greater diversification by which he entered the ‘packaging’ sector to offer both cardboard and plastic containers to other industries. , that nobody manufactured in the region. Because that is one of the keys to the success of today’s so-called ‘entrepreneur of emptied Spain’; focus on the real needs of local consumers, be they individuals or companies.
Finally, sometimes at the invitation of other investors and sometimes buying struggling companies, he entered the chemical sector (his company Iqoxe is dedicated to the production of ethylene oxide); energy with a stake in Gas Extremadura (today it owns 100%) and investments in renewables (Alter Enersun, Ges and Alterna); and in steel (Siderúrgica Balboa, Alfonso Gallardo, Ferromallas, Galvacolor, Corrugados Getafe, Lasaomallas and Marceliano Martín). According to his own data, today he has 3,000 employees and the group in which three of his children are already working in 2022 had a turnover of 2,700 million euros.