The blood product manufacturer Grifols has announced to the CNMV that Víctor Grifols Roura is leaving the board of directors of the company, which he transformed from a small local family laboratory into a global multinational.
Grifols Roura had already left the executive management of the company in 2017, and since 2022 he was no longer president of the board, positions now held by Swiss executive Thomas Glanzmann. However, he remained as a director, a position from which he now resigns, and will remain only as honorary president of the company and honorary president.
The company explained that his position on the board will be occupied by Albert Grifols Coma-Cros, another member of the family who until a few weeks ago was the scientific director of the company and also the grandson of one of the founders, the scientist Josep Antoni Grifols i Lucas. who developed the plasmapheresis technique that is still used today by industry around the world
In a statement, Víctor Grifols Roura assured that "now that the company has returned to the path of sustainable growth, the time has come to turn the page and begin the next chapter." The businessman highlighted his pride “for everything we have managed to do for patients and society in recent decades” and assured that “I am a very lucky person to have been able to combine throughout my life, just as my father did, my two great passions: my family and my work.”
Grifols returned to profits in September, after entering losses due to the effects of the pandemic and its restructuring, with an increase in its income of 11.7 percent, to 4,822 million.
The firm is in the process of deleveraging to reduce the debt, of 9,450 million euros, with which it has financed the purchase of companies in the sector in the United States and Europe. In this process, Grifols is negotiating the sale of its stake in the Chinese company Shanghai Raas, for which it expects to earn around 1.4 billion euros.
