Tens of thousands of euros in public subsidies, record sales and results in 2023 despite “legislative uncertainty” and a board of directors to which people very close to the dictator Francisco Franco have passed.
This is Hispanic Real Estate, chaired by university professor and multimillionaire businessman Jesús Huerta de Soto, one of the leaders of so-called anarcho-capitalism and guru of Argentine President Javier Milei.
Ultra-rich by inheritance, Huerta de Soto is a man of many facets. He runs España SA, the insurance company inherited from his father and founded by his grandfather in 1928, specializing in the field of life insurance. He is also a professor at the Rey Juan Carlos Public University of Madrid, which he uses as a lecturer for his theories. And he chairs this real estate company, whose largest known shareholder is España SA itself, owner of 36.644% of its capital, according to its financial solvency report.
Inmobiliaria Hispana recently filed its 2023 accounts with the commercial register. In its management report, it reports a “positive” development last year, with a turnover of almost 9 million, or 8.26% more, and a profit of 3.46 million. These are record figures, “despite the legislative uncertainty which affects the housing, office and business rental sector”.
Of the 8.94 million it billed in 2023, 58.8% came from the rental of offices and professional premises and the remaining 48.8% came from rental accommodation. Almost all the activity takes place in Madrid. Only 7.11% come from Valencia. The company earns its income from its portfolio, 16 rental properties and two bare ownership properties in these two cities.
Inmobiliaria Hispana was established in the middle of the post-war period, on December 28, 1946. A few days after the United Nations General Assembly accepted the general condemnation of the Franco dictatorship, “a Franco regime, organized and implemented largely with the help of the Nazis. Mussolini’s Germany and Italy. The company maintains intense relationships with certain personalities closely linked to the Franco dictatorship.
In 1965, when Jesús Huerta de Soto was not yet 10 years old, the magazine Cuadernos by Ruedo Ibérico, linked to the Spanish exile under the Franco regime, included Inmobiliaria Hispana among the companies managed by the one known as yernie of the dictator Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, with others like Construcciones y Contratas, the current FCC.
In his book Los Franco SA, the journalist Mariano Sánchez Soler, an expert on the affairs of the Franco clan, recounts how the husband of the dictator’s only daughter, a surgeon by profession, was appointed director of Inmobiliaria Hispana at the request of an associate . of him, shareholder of the Huerta de Soto company: Viscount José de Yanguas Messia.
Minister of State and President of the National Consultative Assembly with Miguel Primo de Rivera, Yanguas Messia was Franco’s first ambassador to the Vatican: “Monarchist follower of the Movement since 1936, appointed by Franco as national advisor to the Spanish traditionalist Falange and the JONS in the unification decree published in Burgos on April 19, 1937”, collected Sánchez Soler in his book.
The Marquis of Villaverde, who died in 1998, remained a member of the board of directors of Inmobiliaria Hispana until the 1990s, according to Insight View data. For his part, the only son of Yanguas Messia, José María Yanguas y Pérez de Herrasti, Viscount of Santa Clara de Avedillo, appeared as director of Inmobiliaria Hispana until June 2022. He was replaced by a daughter of Huerta de Soto, Sonsoles.
Jesús Huerta de Soto, who defends the “very privatization of the streets” and denounces “statism” and what he calls “the subsidy economy”, has been preaching the bankruptcy of the public pension system for years. Professor of King Juan Carlos since 2000, he has directed a Master’s degree in economics at the Austrian School since 2009. He explains to his students what he defines as “the impossibility of socialism”, a “system of institutional aggression against the free exercise of free commercial functions”, and theorizes on the defense and private security sector. “as an effective alternative to the public sector”. sector”.
The billionaire who, during the tribute to Milei in Madrid last June, and in front of several leaders of the PP and Vox, defined democracy as “a perverse system based on lies and the buying of votes with money stolen thanks to taxes”, has been defined as a “synthesizer” of this ultraliberal current which is inspired by the theories of Ludwig von Mises, Fiedrich von Hayek or Murray Rothbard, and which defends state intervention and ” institutional coercion” on the business function They seriously disrupt “the social process of creativity and coordination”.
The accounts of the real estate company he chairs show that as a businessman, he is not opposed to public aid to this state which he dreams of dismantling. In those of 2023, he explains that “three subsidies amounting to 56,365.09 euros appear on the balance sheet”.
“One of them corresponds to a grant granted by the Municipal Housing Corporation of Madrid for the rehabilitation of a company building for an amount of 47,530.15 euros (48,361.19 euros in 2022) and the other two correspond to subsidies granted by the Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness for the construction of photovoltaic solar installations” in two of the company’s properties in Valencia “for an amount of 8,834 euros.
Public aid from Madrid City Hall appears year after year in the accounts. Those in 2009 collected 70,047.24 euros in subsidies. Most for the rehabilitation of a building; and an additional 10,882.53 euros in public aid “granted years ago by the Madrid City Council for the replacement of coal boilers with gas boilers in several of the company’s properties”. elDiario.es asked the town hall headed by José Luis Martínez Almeida for a detailed list of aid granted to Inmobiliaria Hispana. He didn’t get a response.
This practice is reminiscent of the large subsidies received by the modest family businesses of one of Huerta de Soto’s former students, the Canarian lobbyist Gabriel Calzada, founder of the ultraliberal Juan de Mariana Institute which rewarded Milei during this event in June at the Casino de Madrid. . Or the millions of public contracts and subsidies collected by the technological consulting firm of Fernando Monera, the businessman who promoted this tribute.
In the case of España SA, its main source of income is the life insurance it has taken out with various multinationals. But the Huerta de Soto insurer also appears to be the winner of certain public contracts, such as the one awarded to it by Cesce in 2021 for around 65,000 euros. España SA is itself a member of the board of directors of this semi-public company, representing the insurers which are part of its capital.
In the middle of the post-war
Most of the real estate portfolio of the real estate company chaired by Huerta de Soto is located in the Spanish capital: in Gran Vía 64 (a protected building, the first that the insurer acquired, before the civil war), in Núñez de Balboa 45, in Santa Engracia 108, Colombia 61, Vara del Rey 11, Conde Valle de Súchil 9 or on Pie de la Cruz street.
In 2023, the property company had 29 employees: six executives, two administrative staff and 21 urban real estate employees. With assets of 40.5 million, it distributed 1.595 million in dividends last year and valued its properties in pounds at 30 million. The secretary is José Carlos Herrán, another former master’s student of Huerta de Soto who obtained his doctorate with a thesis on Hayek and published a work (with a prologue by his boss) in Unión Editorial, a small and deficient publishing house. Madrid edition specializing in this extremist current of thought.
Although it is dedicated to renting properties, the real estate company Huerta de Soto has never benefited from the so-called socimi regime, through which companies in this sector are exempt from corporate tax, and which the PSOE and Sumar agreed to eliminate some a few days ago, even though the measure was excluded from the tax reform that is being voted on this Thursday in Congress after a tortuous process. Benefiting from these tax advantages would require the company to go public and detail the composition of its shareholders.
The company, which refused to respond to elDiario.es, presents itself on its website as “a reference in the real estate market for the rental of housing and offices in Madrid and Valencia. We carefully manage and maintain our buildings located in the most attractive areas and neighborhoods of the capital, such as the center and the old town, the Salamanca district, Santa Engracia, the Chamberí district, the Castellana axis, etc.
“Always focused on the satisfaction of our tenants, we offer an excellent level of quality and finishes, complete maintenance of our buildings and the best service from our urban real estate employees.”
While in Huerta de Soto’s master’s degree “most subjects have a pass percentage close to 100%,” according to a 2019 evaluation, the same cannot be said of Hispanic real estate reviews published on Google.
“Without a doubt the worst experience of my life with a rental,” confides one user. “A real scam,” says the next one. “The worst professionals in the world,” continues another. “Shameful. They still keep the deposit,” says the next one. And so on up to 20 comments. They all have one star, the lowest possible rating.
