César Alierta (Zaragoza, May 5, 1945) died this Wednesday in Zaragoza. Alierta was one of the last great businessmen left from the turnaround, leading the hectic phase of privatizations of public companies such as Tabacalera and Telefónica, which he led one after the other.
He worked in the private sector, especially at Banco Urquijo, although professionally he shone as a founding partner of the investment company Beta Capital, from which he undertook multi-million dollar deals, such as entering the capital of the KIO Group. His greatest and most profitable passion was the stock exchange business.
He achieved his business fame when, in 2000, after his time at Tabacalera (1996-2000), he was chosen by Rodrigo Rato, then Minister of Economy in the government of José María Aznar, to turn Telefónica around, outraged by the direction it had taken . took over the company under the unique leadership of Juan Villalonga, who was on the verge of bankruptcy due to ruinous deals such as the purchase of Lycos or the failed merger with the small Dutch operator KPN.
Without compromising his professionalism in management, Alierta always took care of good relations with the political power. In the more than three decades in which he held the presidency of the telecommunications operator, he lived with three government presidents (José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy) and, despite frequent pressure from this region, he was never allegedly questioned .
César Alierta, when he was president of Tabacalera, photographed in Madrid in 1997.Claudio Alvarez 
César Alierta, during his speech at the Telefónica general meeting in 2006. Eulogio Martín Castellanos
César Alierta with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during a meeting at the Palácio do Planalto in Brasilia in January 2007. Carlos Humberto (EFE)
David Rockefeller (center) with César Alierta (right) and Panamanian businessman Stanley Motta after receiving the Americas Society Gold Medal at a 2010 gala in New York.Miguel Rajmil (EFE)
César Alierta rings the bell during Telefónica's IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Germany) October 30, 2012. © Ralph Orlowski / Portal (Portal)
César Alierta with Colombian cyclist Nairo Quintana at the presentation of the Movistar cycling team in Madrid on January 9, 2015. GERARD JULIEN (AFP)
César Alierta, between José María Álvarez-Pallete (left) and Ángel Vilá Boix, during the presentation of Telefónica's results in 2015. Luis Sevillano Arribas
This ability to cope with power brought him a lot of criticism, as he hired numerous managers who came from the world of politics, such as Eduardo Zaplana, Rodrigo Rato, Narcís Serra or Iñaki Urdangarín, among others, and whose professional character The work in Company, if there was one, is more than questionable. To his credit, Alierta never renounced his friends, such as Rato, his patron and political godfather, with whom he even shared business (a hotel in Berlin), and that he was one of the few who supported him in Soto prison del Real visited.
A shadow that weighs on his biography as a manager was the conviction in 2009 for a crime of misuse of confidential information, which he committed while managing the company Tabacalera, then in public hands, although the Supreme Court had him two Years later, for this reason, the statute of limitations absolved the crime. Alierta was indicted for an operation to buy and sell Tabacalera shares that he carried out in 1997 through his nephew Luis Javier Placer, taking advantage of the knowledge he had as president of the company about the purchase of the American company his own advantage. Havatampa. When the deal was closed and made public, shares rose and Alierta sold his securities for a capital gain of €1.8 million.
At Telefónica, Alierta's leadership was very personal and he did not hesitate to flip the management organizational chart several times if he was not satisfied with the group's development. He chose José María Álvarez-Pallete as his dolphin (at Tabacalera he had appointed Pablo Isla, later CEO of Inditex), and in April 2016 he gave him the presidency of the multinational and retired to Telefónica after receiving a hefty remuneration -Foundation returned pension plans for more than 50 million euros. He broke off his relationship with Telefónica and gave up the board of directors in 2017 and the presidency of the foundation in 2022. Since then, due to his poor health, he disappeared from the public stage to manage his private assets.
César Alierta, in his old Telefónica office in 2000.Luis Davilla (Cover/Getty Images)
In the 16 years he held the presidency, he knew how to transform the old analog Telefónica, founded at the beginning of this century, into the digital ecosystem. He led the company's period of greatest expansion, not only in its natural environment (Spain and Latin America), but also in mature European markets such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Ireland, although it later exited some of them. To this end, it undertook the largest operations in the group's history such as the granting of UMTS licenses (with losses of several million dollars), the purchase of BellSouth's Latin American subsidiaries, the acquisition of O2 or the acquisition of Total control of Vivo, the largest Brazilian operator. “It is a bitter day for the Telefónica family. Through his blows and his love, César leaves us with his heart wide open. Thank you very much, dear friend,” said his successor at the helm of the company, Álvarez-Pallete.
Unlike the newly minted executives, Alierta fled political correctness. Although he had a master's degree in business administration from Columbia University (New York), he had a special way of speaking English that he was never ashamed of, as he believed that Spanish leaders were much more intuitive than Anglo-Saxon leaders . It is not surprising that he attacked the big personalities of the Internet such as the bosses of Google or Facebook, whom he accused of parasitizing Telefónica's networks and storing customers' personal data.
Personally, Alierta was married to Ana Cristina Placer, whose death in 2015 was a huge blow to him from which he never recovered. Without children, he turned to his nephew Javier Placer, whom he put in charge of Telefónica's innovation division. His greatest passion was Real Zaragoza, a club of which he was a shareholder and a fierce supporter, so much so that he did not hesitate to show up in the middle of a meeting to find out minute by minute how the team was playing when they were played this moment.
César Alierta, at an event in Madrid in 2015. Luis Sevillano
The 2011 viral photo of Alierta handing a shoeshine boy a 100-euro bill while smoking a cigar on a terrace on Serrano Street in Madrid is emblematic of a kind of businessman in the making. Extinction in which personality and social relationships were more important than investment bank reports in doing business. An era that also includes Emilio Botín, Isidoro Álvarez, José Manuel Lara and Leopoldo Rodés, who together with Alierta founded in 2011 this strange lobby called the Business Council for Competitiveness, which acted as a kind of selected CEOE, and both of which He brought people for his political views on speaking. In short, with Alierta a way of understanding the company has disappeared that will not come back.
Follow all information Business And Business on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter
The five-day agenda
The most important business quotes of the day, with the keys and context to understand their significance.
RECEIVE IT IN YOUR EMAIL