Mario Antonio Conde Conde (; born 14 September 1948) is a Spanish businessman, former banker, state lawyer and politician. He served as chairman of
Banesto
Banco Español de Crédito, S.A. (), “Spanish Credit Bank”) better known as Banesto, was a Spanish multinational financial services company. Prior to the Spanish Government's historical intervention in 1993, the very first in the history of ...
from November 1987 to December 1993, when he was dismissed and the firm intervened by the
Bank of Spain
The Bank of Spain ( es, link=no, Banco de España) is the central bank of Spain. Established in Madrid in 1782 by Charles III of Spain, Charles III, today the bank is a member of the European System of Central Banks and is also Spain's national ...
, in what would become the first major interference of a government in a financial institution. At the peak of his career in 1987, a 38-year-old Conde controlled over 1% of Spain's
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often ...
.
Son of a humble
customs inspector
A customs officer is a law enforcement agent who enforces customs laws, on behalf of a government.
Canada
Canadian customs officers are members of the Canada Border Services Agency. It was created in 2003 and preceded by the Canada Customs and ...
, he was noted for his studying and hard-working capabilities, which led him to obtain the highest distinction of his year's
Law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
promotion at the
University of Deusto
The University of Deusto ( es, Universidad de Deusto; eu, Deustuko Unibertsitatea) is a Spanish private university owned by the Society of Jesus, with campuses in Bilbao and San Sebastián, and the Deusto Business School branch in Madrid. The Un ...
. Conde's career came to the spotlight when, age 24, he became the youngest
State Lawyer
The State Lawyers Corps (Spanish: ''Cuerpo de Abogados del Estado'') is a body of top civil servants in Spain, dependent on the Solicitor General of the State, itself organically integrated (currently) within the Ministry of Justice.
It was crea ...
in the history of Spain, achieving also the highest grade ever attained in the corps. He remarkably earned the title in little more than a year, when the average candidate took 5.
After working for two years in the
Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance.
Lists of current ministries of finance
Named "Ministry"
* Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan)
* Ministry of Finance and Eco ...
, Conde met
Juan Abelló
Juan Abelló Gallo (born 1941) is a Spanish billionaire businessman and art collector. In March 2021, ''Forbes'' estimated his wealth at $3 billion. In 2023, ''CEO World Magazine'' ranked him as the seventh richest individual in Spain with $2.8 ...
who, convinced of his talent, offered him a place as board member at his family's laboratory. Following the sale of the laboratories to
Merck Sharp & Dohme
Merck & Co., Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Rahway, New Jersey, and is named for Merck Group, founded in Germany in 1668, of whom it was once the American arm. The company does business as Merck Sharp ...
in 1984, they gained control of Antibióticos S.A., an important
antibiotic
An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention of ...
s firm at the time. In March 1987, Conde and Abelló took part in what became the most ambitious transaction in the history of private business in Spain, the sale of the 100% of shares of Antibióticos S.A. to
Montedison
Edison S.p.A. is an Italian electric utility company headquartered in Milan. The company was established in 1884 and acquired by Electricité de France in 2012. Edison employs more than 5,000 people in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. C ...
for US$450 million (approximately US$1 billion today).
The exceptionally wealthy Conde and his partner Abelló, who had amassed a fortune following the deal with Montedison, bought a significant amount of shares of
Banesto
Banco Español de Crédito, S.A. (), “Spanish Credit Bank”) better known as Banesto, was a Spanish multinational financial services company. Prior to the Spanish Government's historical intervention in 1993, the very first in the history of ...
, one of the largest banks in Spain, so to become members of the management board.
Conde was eventually appointed executive chairman on 30 November 1987, becoming the youngest financial chairman of the moment.
As a result of six years of an allegedly corrupt management of the bank and excessive credit-lending, there was a patrimonial hole in Banesto tentatively estimated at €3.6 billion (equivalent to roughly US$7.2 billion today) on 28 December 1993.
Luis Carlos Croissier
Luis Carlos Croissier Batista (born 1950) is a Spanish politician and executive. He served as Minister of Industry and Energy from 1986 to 1988.
Biography
He was born on 18 August 1950 in Arucas, in the Canary Islands. He moved to the mainla ...
, the President of the
Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores
The National Securities Market Commission () (often abbreviated as CNMV) is the Spanish government agency responsible for the financial regulation of the securities markets in Spain. It is an independent agency that falls under the Ministry of E ...
, the financial regulator of the national securities markets, decided to impose a trading halt on Banesto, and Luis Ángel Rojo, the Governor of the Bank of Spain, communicated the intervention of the banking entity, tasking
Alfredo Sáenz Abad
Alfredo Sáenz Abad (born 21 November 1942) is a Spanish businessman who was the CEO and Vice-Chairman of the Spanish bank Santander Group, the largest bank in the Eurozone and one of the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalisat ...
with chairing the board of directors of Banesto in a temporary basis.
Conde, who stayed in
preventive detention
Preventive detention is an imprisonment that is putatively justified for non-punitive purposes, most often to prevent (further) criminal acts.
Types of preventive detention
There is no universally agreed definition of preventive detention, and mu ...
from December 1994 to January 1995,
faced a trail of judicial problems. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2000 by the
Audiencia Nacional
The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...
(raised to 20 years in 2002 by the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
).
He in fact served 11 years before being paroled.
Mario Conde was seen for many years as the ultimate societal role-model. His embodiment of the
self-made man
"Self-made man" is a classic phrase coined on February 2, 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate, to describe individuals whose success lay within the individuals themselves, not with outside conditions. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Foun ...
was admired by many, dubbing him "the real life
Great Gatsby" but also "Spain's
Machiavelli".
Biography
He was born on 14 September 1948 in
Tui, in the
province of Pontevedra
Pontevedra is a province of Spain along the country's Atlantic coast in southwestern Europe. The province forms the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Galicia. It is bordered by the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, and Ourense, th ...
.
He earned a
Licentiate degree
A licentiate (abbreviated Lic.) is an academic degree present in many countries, representing different educational levels.
It may be similar to a master's degree when issued by pontifical universities and other universities in Europe, Latin Am ...
in Law at the
University of Deusto
The University of Deusto ( es, Universidad de Deusto; eu, Deustuko Unibertsitatea) is a Spanish private university owned by the Society of Jesus, with campuses in Bilbao and San Sebastián, and the Deusto Business School branch in Madrid. The Un ...
, getting the best academic record of his promotion, full of
Honours
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
as well as he also obtained the
Extraordinary Prize of Degree.
He joined the
State Lawyers Corps
The State Lawyers Corps (Spanish: ''Cuerpo de Abogados del Estado'') is a body of top civil servants in Spain, dependent on the Solicitor General of the State, itself organically integrated (currently) within the Ministry of Justice.
It was crea ...
in 1973, 1st in his promotion.
First destined in Toledo, and later at the Ministry of Finance in Madrid, he left the public administration on voluntary leave in 1976, starting then a career in the private sector.
Full of ambition, Conde, who has been described as the incarnation of the paradigm of
yuppie
Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neu ...
in the 1980s in Spain,
became a major shareholder of the Banco Espaňol de Crédito (
Banesto
Banco Español de Crédito, S.A. (), “Spanish Credit Bank”) better known as Banesto, was a Spanish multinational financial services company. Prior to the Spanish Government's historical intervention in 1993, the very first in the history of ...
) in October 1987,
[ and, soon after, on 30 November, he was appointed as the Chairman of Banesto,] serving from 16 December 1987 to 29 December 1993. His highly successful business career as well as exemplary public image ended when Banesto was declared in bankruptcy.
With a patrimonial hole in Banesto tentatively estimated at 450,000,000,000 pesetas (roughly €2,704,000,000), on 28 December 1993, Luis Carlos Croissier
Luis Carlos Croissier Batista (born 1950) is a Spanish politician and executive. He served as Minister of Industry and Energy from 1986 to 1988.
Biography
He was born on 18 August 1950 in Arucas, in the Canary Islands. He moved to the mainla ...
, the President of the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores
The National Securities Market Commission () (often abbreviated as CNMV) is the Spanish government agency responsible for the financial regulation of the securities markets in Spain. It is an independent agency that falls under the Ministry of E ...
the financial regulator of the national securities markets, decided to impose a trading halt on Banesto, and Luis Ángel Rojo, the Governor of the Bank of Spain
The Bank of Spain ( es, link=no, Banco de España) is the central bank of Spain. Established in Madrid in 1782 by Charles III of Spain, Charles III, today the bank is a member of the European System of Central Banks and is also Spain's national ...
, communicated the intervention of the banking entity, tasking Alfredo Sáenz Abad
Alfredo Sáenz Abad (born 21 November 1942) is a Spanish businessman who was the CEO and Vice-Chairman of the Spanish bank Santander Group, the largest bank in the Eurozone and one of the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalisat ...
with chairing the board of directors of Banesto in a temporary basis. Conde, who stayed in preventive detention
Preventive detention is an imprisonment that is putatively justified for non-punitive purposes, most often to prevent (further) criminal acts.
Types of preventive detention
There is no universally agreed definition of preventive detention, and mu ...
from December 1994 to January 1995, faced a trail of judicial problems. He paid a visit to prison (February 1998 – August 99) fulfilling part of the 4-year and a half sentence that the justice delivered vis-à-vis the "Argentia Trust" case. Regarding the "Banesto" case, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2000 by the Audiencia Nacional
The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...
(raised to 20 years in 2002 by the Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
).[ He in fact served 11 years before being paroled.]
In 1998, he affiliated to the Democratic and Social Centre (CDS), and, postulated as prime ministerial candidate by the party, ran as candidate to the Congress of Deputies
The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Ma ...
, 1st in the UCD list for Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
vis-à-vis the 2000 general election. CDS failed to obtain parliamentary representation.
A collaborator in Intereconomía, the media group further to the right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of Liberty, freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convent ...
in the mainstream Spanish scene, chiefly as panelist in ''El gato al agua
''El gato al agua'' (in English: ''To win the day'') (literal translation: to take the cat into the water) is a Spanish television and radio programme produced by Intereconomía Corporación and broadcast on Radio Intereconomía, Radio Intercontin ...
'', he became the conductor of a short-lived late-night show called ''Una hora con Mario'' ("One hour with Mario") in June 2011.
He was promoter of the political party Sociedad Civil y Democracia (SCD), registered in 2011. He was elected president of SCD in its constituent assembly, celebrated on 6 October 2012. He contested the 21 October 2012 Galician regional election, running 1st in the SCD list in Pontevedra
Pontevedra (, ) is a Spanish city in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. It is the capital of both the ''Comarca'' (County) and Province of Pontevedra, and of the Rías Baixas in Galicia. It is also the capital of its own municipality whi ...
. The party's political platform was focused on attacking the "autonomic state", which SCD described as "inefficient". Regarding the November 2012 Catalan regional election, SCD did not contest at the ballots, but Conde endorsed and called to vote for Citizens
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
. Conde left the post of party leader on 21 May 2013, and months later, in September 2013, María Jamardo assumed as new President. By February 2014, when Jamardo left the SCD's leadership, the party was reportedly at the verge of dissolution, amid heavy competition from other political parties, with—according to the SCD's director of communication—plenty of members ready to jump to the newly created Vox.
In April 2016 he was rearrested, along with several family members and put into remand due to an apparently fraudulent transfer of capital. A cosmetics company he owns was implicated in the fraud, which combined a failure to pay some workers with the large quantities of money found offshore.
During most of his life, Conde and some important figures of Spanish society have defended him, saying that his arrest, charges, imprisonment and overall downfall were staged by several powerful figures, including former prime ministers Felipe Gonzalez
Felipe is the Spanish variant of the name Philip, which derives from the Greek adjective ''Philippos'' "friend of horses". Felipe is also widely used in Portuguese-speaking Brazil alongside Filipe, the form commonly used in Portugal.
Noteworthy pe ...
and José María Aznar
José María Alfredo Aznar López (; born 25 February 1953) is a Spanish politician who was the prime minister of Spain from 1996 to 2004. He led the People's Party (PP), the dominant centre-right political party in Spain.
A member of the Fre ...
.
Writer
After his exploits with Banesto he founded the magazine MC and has also published several books in Spanish about his experience of power, his life as a prisoner and his prison experience, Taoism and various religious beliefs as well as his most demanded work, "The System", a long book that details his personal experiences with the supposedly unofficial powers that rule the country from the shadows, those being bankers, politicians, media moguls, and so on. According to Xavier Casals
Xavier Casals Meseguer (born 1963) is a Spanish historian specialized in the field of the far-right.
Biography
Born in 1963 in Barcelona, he has authored several works about the Far right, featuring studies both about the Spanish Neo-nazi and ...
, Conde set the foundations of a "protestatary" brand of populism
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
directed against the economic and political elites.
Honours
* Complutense University of Madrid
The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loca ...
: Doctor Honoris Causa
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
(1993-2016)
EL PAÍS: La Complutense retira el título de honoris causa a Mario Conde
Bibliography
* Asalto al poder by Jesús Cacho. Where explains how the criminal conspiracy between Abelló and Conde corrupted one of the most important banks in Spain (which subsequently rescued by Santander Bank).
* ''Duelo of titanes.'' Jesús Cacho. On the failed fusion of Banesto with the Central Bank.
* M.C. , Jesús Cacho. On the intervention of Banesto.
* Conde, el ángel caído (the fallen angel) by Luis Herrero.
See also
* Economy of Spain
The economy of Spain is a Developed country, highly developed social market economy. It is the world's List of countries by GDP (nominal), sixteenth-largest by nominal GDP and the List of sovereign states in Europe by GDP (nominal), sixth-largest ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conde, Mario
University of Deusto alumni
1948 births
People from O Baixo Miño
Living people
Populism in Spain
Spanish prisoners and detainees
Members of the State Lawyers Corps
20th-century Spanish businesspeople
Spanish bankers