Rafael del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo is one of the most veteran Ibex 35 businessmen. Twenty-three years at the head of Ferrovial, the company that his father created in 1950, during the Franco regime. Its name is due to the fact that the initial activity was the slotting of sleepers and the renewal of railway tracks. The leap occurred when Renfe awarded him his first major assignment: the Las Rozas-Chamartín route, in Madrid. Public works and tenders (1,000 million during Pedro Sánchez's term) became his main source of income. Del Pino Sr., the company admits, had the right contacts. The business was extended to hydraulic works, roads, buildings and highways. In the seventies the international leap took place. But Spain and, specifically, the construction of roads already in the Transition were the cornerstone of Ferrovial's growth. In Catalonia, in 1986, at the height of the public works boom, he obtained the concession for the Terrassa-Manresa motorway. A success, however, not without controversy, such as the involvement in the Palau case.
Del Pino, a civil engineer with an MBA from MIT, has always been consistent with his father's philosophy: that the family business grow without losing control of it. A constant growth in the heat of public contracts with administrations of all kinds. For this reason, the decision to move the headquarters to the Netherlands represents a turning point in the history of a firm with a national tradition.
In recent years, Del Pino has not been far from that fine line that separates political power from economic power. The so-called system. The president of Ferrovial was an active part of the Business Council for Competitiveness (CEC), the sanhedrin of big businessmen, at the worst of the economic crisis. A connoisseur of the Ibex club recalls that Emilio Botín (Santander), César Alierta (Telefónica) and Isidro Fainé (La Caixa) were the promoters of a forum in which Del Pino always participated actively. They believed in the idea of maintaining a cohesive group in the death throes of the Zapatero government and after Rajoy's arrival at Moncloa. The CEC was dissolved a year and a half before the arrival of Pedro Sánchez and the relationship of these presidents with the Government was never the same.
Del Pino's career could not be understood without his alter ego at Ferrovial, Íñigo Meirás, his right-hand man until 2019 (he is now the CEO of Logista). The national and international growth of the company is due, to a large extent, to its management. Del Pino then turned to someone from outside the house, Ignacio Madridejos, president of Cemex in the United States, and the person in charge of explaining in video format the reasons for the transfer to the Netherlands.
Moncloa and Economy did not know that Ferrovial was going to leave Spain. They found out on Tuesday through the CNMV. The company could have informed the Executive earlier, but decided not to. And that is what has led Sánchez's cabinet to raise its pulse directly against Del Pino. Although the businessman made an effort to try to explain the decision to Sánchez and his economic ministers, the torpedo had already hit.
It is the end of a relationship that was always tense and, at the same time, cordial. Del Pino did not hide in recent years his misdiagnosis of the Executive's economic policy, they say in his environment. Even so, Moncloa considered him a fixture and always took care of him. The last time he saw Sánchez was in Davos, in January. In Switzerland, he did not give clues to the government team about the decision executed just a month later.
A fact that has not gone unnoticed in the Government is the proximity of Rafael del Pino to the president of the PP. The businessman participated in a public event in January with Alberto Núñez Feijóo. "I believe that we must once again turn Spain into an attractive destination for investment and a magnet for the best talent, and for this we need a competitive labor framework and legal certainty in all areas," said Del Pino. And he praised the PP candidate for Moncloa: he stands out for "his management capacity" and "his political and administrative solvency," he said. "We hope to hear his recipe for the complex situation that we have had to live through." "Don't pretend to be Galician and don't let us down." Del Pino added that Feijóo "has always defended the role of the company as a driver of economic growth" and that Ferrovial would contribute to building a better and more prosperous Spain.
Rafael del Pino has been a staunch defender of the Spain Brand throughout his career. He was one of the targets of the first swords of the Ibex grouped in the Business Council for Competitiveness (CEC) and he continued to play that role after its dissolution. Among the acknowledgments received by the president of Ferrovial, in fact, is having been named "honorary ambassador of the Spain Brand" within the business management category. One of Ferrovial's business areas is the management of services of public interest both in Spain and abroad. Not the management of direct public services, but contracts that could be considered essential, such as cleaning or garbage collection.
Outside national borders, Del Pino has also received high recognition. In 2021, for example, the president of Ferrovial was chosen as "entrepreneur of the year" by the Spain-United States Chamber of Commerce "for his long professional career and his strong commitment to the market" of the country. In June of last year, Queen Elizabeth II recognized him as an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire for Ferrovial's outstanding activity in the United Kingdom.
