Founding Partner

Tell us about yourself

I am a telecoms engineer by training, although I only worked as an engineer for two summers. I believe, however, that I have applied an engineering mindset throughout my career. Creative problem-solving is probably what I enjoy most in my job. I also have many shortcomings, but, as a good private equity investor, I have learned to leverage others’ strengths to overcome my limitations.

Apart from Spain, I have lived in Germany, the UK, and the US. The culture in these countries has really shaped my perspective. We Southern Europeans are different on many levels, and learning from other cultures is truly enriching.

I will celebrate 25 years of marriage this autumn and have three children. I am a reasonably good golfer, and I find golf to be the best school of humility. I am also an irrational supporter of Atlético de Madrid—perhaps not so irrational, as I did not allow my children to become Atlético fans (it is a miserable life), and I pretended to be a Real Madrid supporter for ten years.

How did you enter the Private Equity Industry?

I had worked at BCG for two years—a very demanding job. When I was in business school, a colleague from BCG had just joined Apax. He told me he was making more money than in consulting and working from 9 to 17. I found that quite convincing. He also told me about a concept called carried interest. That is where the story began.

By 2000, Apax had a diversified strategy spanning start-ups, development capital, and buyouts. Unfortunately, the market in Spain was not very developed at the time, and it was challenging to convince entrepreneurs to engage in transactions—although we were able to complete a few successful deals.

In 2007, I joined Ibersuizas and first met the founding team at Portobello (Íñigo, Juan Luis, Ramón, Carlos). I was struck by the breadth of our relationships—deal flow was consistently strong. Coming from an Anglo-Saxon culture at Apax, the approach to deals was initially somewhat different, but over time we learned from one another.

The founding of Portobello was not easy, but we quickly focused on building the business. We were the first Spanish fund to raise capital after the GFC and the Southern European debt crisis, which gave us a distinctive angle with Fund III. Since then, we have been pioneers in developing new products and strategies for LPs and have become the reference firm in Spain for private equity.

What are your main responsibilities at Portobello Capital?

I continue to devote the majority of my time to investments—new deals, portfolio monitoring, and exits. I have always enjoyed thinking deeply about the investment rationale behind transactions, understanding the underlying economics of businesses, and identifying jewels that may not be obvious to others. Multiasistencia, Centauro, and Legálitas are good examples.

Negotiation strategy is another area where I spend time. Going the extra mile in investments and divestments makes a real difference. It requires a combination of skills—personal, technical, judgement, and more—often within a short period of time.

From a corporate perspective, I dedicate time to developing new strategies, reporting to investors, and partially supervising legal matters and even IT. I am not particularly good at fundraising, but fortunately Juan Luis, Íñigo, and Sabrina are superstars at it.

We all tend to talk and write about deals where we have made many times our money, but it is also worth focusing on transactions that did not go as smoothly, required extra effort, and ultimately delivered good outcomes for LPs.

We invested in Grupo Mediterránea in Secondary Fund I after delivering 3x in Fund II. Mediterránea was the largest independent catering player in Spain, providing more than 265,000 meals per day in hospitals, schools, and corporate canteens across Spain, Portugal, Chile, and Peru. The investment performed as expected and we planned an exit by mid-2020. Then COVID arrived and we had to stop operations for a few months. We burned more than €50 million over three years and went through two refinancing rounds, with lenders injecting €50 million and shareholders only €2 million. Many competitors disappeared and, in 2022, we returned to all-time-high monthly results. Then the Russia–Ukraine war began and inflation surged. The business’s main customer is the public administration (public hospitals and schools), with limited flexibility to adjust prices, so we moved back into heavy losses until contracts were renewed, which only happened at the beginning of 2025. We completed a third refinancing round in which lenders were exhausted, and we had to inject €8 million in mid-2024, albeit with clear visibility on the recovery.

In 2025, the company returned to record profitability and we were able to run a swift sale process, selling to Sodexo. Ultimately, we expect to return nearly €100 million to investors, representing more than 25% of the fund. The multiple on total investment is slightly below 2x, but the multiple on the last rescue equity injection is above 10x. It was a very difficult situation in which management, suppliers, lenders, and we all contributed to preserving a company with market leadership, strategic value, and an intrinsically attractive industry—despite the impact of exogenous factors.