Why did you leave Barcelona?
We emigrated to Brazil when I was 17 years old. My father presided over the Torras Hostench group: have you used Henri notebooks?
Sometimes, yes.
They are named after my uncle, Enrique Grebler...
The Greblers, Swiss bankers?
Yes, and I also remember that I waited for Tarradellas on the plane the day he returned to Catalonia. My father was a deputy in the first Parliament with Anton Cañellas, from the UCD...
Was it difficult for you to integrate in Brazil?
We lived in Salvador de Bahía, where I married Isabel.
Did you also work in a paper mill there?
In Brazil we traded in paper and pulp, chemicals, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, especially with China; But in 1988 Tiananmen happened and China disappeared from the markets for three years. We are out of business.
How did they overcome it?
Dad was about to die and I was 25 years old when they offered me to go to Houston: I didn't know any English.
Did you learn it quickly?
I have been in Houston for 36 years, except for the three I spent in Panama, where we founded my company, Tricon Energy. Last year we had a turnover of 13 billion dollars: it is the first private company in turnover in Houston and the first trader in the world...
In what?
In 23 families of products that are the raw materials that make our life the way it is: methanol, caustic soda, benzene... We do trading and distribution, but what has really made me popular in Boston are my two Spanish restaurants.
Paella and tapas?
At BCN we make everything except paella and tapas. We copy Ca l'Isidre from Barcelona: grandma's food with the best product in an elegant setting.
And in the MAD, cooked and tripe?
At MAD, only tapas and paella. And waiters earn $80,000 a year...
It is a good salary in the sector.
...Only in tips, without counting the salary.
I confess that in the US it hurts me to add 20% of what it already costs as a tip.
But if you have been given bad service, the tip is zero: in our restaurants, if a tip is less than 20% it is because the waiter has given bad service or because the customers were European.
Is it difficult to find fully employed waiters in the US?
There is full employment there because work and meritocracy are valued. If you are good, you enter university, and thus you have good colleagues and a good international network. And, by the way, I would add that this is what Barcelona needs to attract global talent: speak more English.
Among other things.
That is why in our foundation we signed an agreement with the Aretian team from Harvard to design a twin city model of Barcelona in which to test measures, for example, traffic, and check their consequences. We funded another model for Houston and used it to prevent flooding. And we also invest in ice cream parlors...
Isn't that a lot of stress? How do you manage it?
I pray the rosary every day: it is my yoga time. The ice cream parlor chain is Rocambolesc and we employ children with disabilities there. In Houston we like family business, where women work as much as men. And the lower tax level helps.
Do they pay so much less in taxes there?
An average American pays half the taxes of an average Spaniard.
Don't they also have fewer services and pensions in the US and healthcare is private?
In the US, research in medicine or even education is in the private sphere.
Does private initiative look after the common interest in the same way as public administration?
In America, funds are transferred to the private initiative thanks to a philanthropic venture through which citizens of a medium-high economic level return to society voluntarily – not obliged by taxation – what they have received from it.
For example?
80% of opera is financed by that philanthropy and almost all performing arts.
Can you do philanthropy without money?
Philanthropy without money generates enormous satisfaction: I do spiritual exercises and I did one during three days as a volunteer in a Houston prison with the inmates.
What do you remember from those days?
I saw that behind their victims – and they have to pay for their crimes – they are themselves as victims: they have not had any opportunity in life and the American judicial system is relentless... but...
...But?
But the good you generate with that moneyless philanthropy is limited to the hours you can dedicate to it. With money you do more good for more people for more days.
