Isidoro Alvarez, Chairman of Spain’s El Corte Ingles, Dies at 79

By Katie Linsell and Macarena Munoz

Photographer: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images

Isidoro Alvarez, chairman of Spanish retailer El Corte Ingles SA, inherited 15 percent... Read More

Isidoro Alvarez, chairman of Spanish retailer El Corte Ingles SA, died yesterday in a Madrid hospital. He was 79.
Alvarez was admitted to hospital Sept. 10 with breathing difficulties that led to heart failure, according to an e-mailed statement from the company. He was “one of the great businessmen of this country,” Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said. Alvarez’s coffin is at foundation of his family in Madrid today for relatives and friends to pay their last respects.
His death marks a changing of the guard in Spain after Banco Santander SA’s chairman, Emilio Botin, died last week. This year also saw the abdication of King Juan Carlos and the passing of Adolfo Suarez, the prime minister who led the nation into
democracy in the 1970s after the rule of General Francisco Franco.
Alvarez inherited 15 percent of Europe’s biggest department store chain from his uncle, Ramon Areces, who founded the company out of a tailor shop of the same name in central Madrid. He had a net worth of $919 million according to the Bloomberg Billionaires data. Alvarez’s nephew, Dimas Gimeno Alvarez, sits on the company’s board and El Corte Ingles named him general manager last year.
“My education has always been El Corte Ingles and my teacher, Ramon Areces,” Alvarez had said on the company’s website.
Isidoro Alvarez was born in the northern Spanish region of Asturias in 1935 and began working at El Corte Ingles at the age of 18, while studying economics and business sciences at the Complutense University in Madrid.
He became managing director of El Corte Ingles in 1966 and took over as chairman in 1989 following his uncle’s death.

Superior Service

Under his watch, the closely held company started offering insurance and travel agency services, opened superstores and acquired Marks & Spencer Group Plc (MKS) stores in Spain. El Corte Ingles reported consolidated sales of 14.3 billion euros ($18.5 billion) in 2013.
Today, the company’s department stores are situated in some of the most-desired locations in Spain. El Corte Ingles, which translates as The English Cut -- a reference to its origins as a tailor shop -- also operates supermarkets, hypermarkets and discount stores, as well as travel agencies and an insurance company.
Providing superior service and quality merchandise was part of Alvarez’s mantra for decades. Armies of formally dressed salespeople flock to shoppers in the company’s brightly-lit stores. Every year, the company has sent birthday cards from Alvarez to 11 million store card holders.
According to author Javier Cuartas, the media-shy retail baron offered to pay him to stop writing a book about the company. When Cuartas refused, Alvarez bought the entire 20,000-copy run of “Biografia de El Corte Ingles” from local bookstores on its first day in print.