On Sunday, May 21, 1922, Catalan motorsport enthusiasts had an unmissable date on their calendar because on that day the second edition of the Armangué Trophy for cars was held. The competition was named in honor of Josep Maria Armangué Feliu, a pioneer of speed who died prematurely in a plane crash (we dedicated a profile of this series to him on September 25, 2022) and served to bring together both local and foreign drivers. The main attraction of the race were the promising Austro-Daimlers, especially the one driven by Alfred Neubauer, who had played a very dignified role in the Targa Florio held a few weeks earlier. At the end of the first lap of the Tarragona circuit, when Neubauer had set the best time, a tragic accident with several fatalities forced the race to be stopped and the Czech was left without a victory. He would never be a great star on the track, but he was a fundamental race director for Daimler for many years. The person who had given him the opportunity to enter the world of speed and who financed the Austro-Daimler racing team was Camillo Castiglioni, a banker considered the richest man in Central Europe at the time of World War I.

On Wednesday, November 14, 1984, the then Spanish Prime Minister, Felipe González, rose from his seat in the Congress of Deputies to defend himself against accusations of illegal financing leveled against the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). Hugging the microphone, he uttered a phrase that would go down in history: "Neither Flick nor Flock." His reference to Flick had no connection to the man who four decades later would coach FC Barcelona—who, incidentally, that season won the German Third Division league playing for SV Sandhausen—but rather to a German billionaire accused of financing the Spanish socialists.

Along a relatively short stretch of the C-17 highway, near Parets del Vallès, Montmeló, Santa Perpètua, and a few other nearby towns, we find a truly interesting array of large companies headquartered there: Pastas Gallo, Reckitt Benckiser, Grifols, Mondelez, and the former Idilia Foods. We can also take note of another company called Freudenberg, which may not be as well-known, but has been based in Catalonia since the late 1960s.

In 1938, at the height of the Spanish Civil War, Alfredo Kindelán, the Francoist air force chief, received a strange letter while stationed in Salamanca. In it, a wealthy Catalan man begged him to drop bombs on his own house in Barcelona, ​​providing all the necessary information to ensure the attack, including the exact location and several photographs of the property. The story is so bizarre that it requires some digging to unravel the mystery. The sender was Josep Gallart Folch, the son of a wealthy man who had made his fortune in Puerto Rico. The mansion in question was the Palau de les Heures, which still stands today amidst a wooded area in Vall d'Hebron and is managed by the University of Barcelona. Gallart's self-destructive impulse stemmed from the confiscation of the palace by Republican authorities during the war, and also from the fact that it served as a temporary residence for President Companys. Luckily, no bomb ever fell on the property and we can still enjoy it today.

There aren't many mass-market brands that use that name. Catalan in its name. In fact, some companies that identified with the country in their name have ended up removing the brand, as is the case with a well-known insurance company in Sant Cugat del Vallès. But there is one product that has proudly displayed its Catalan identity for almost a century and a half, albeit in another language. This is the famous Vichy Catalan, which since 1890 has established itself as the country's best-known sparkling water supplier (since the official brand name has no accent, it can be assumed to be written in French). Behind the creation of this company is a man who played a key role, Dr. Modest Furest, who discovered the properties of the waters that spring from the subsoil of the Caldes de Malavella area. These waters had been renowned since Roman times, but Furest provided the scientific validation.

"In the labyrinth of alleyways and dark corridors of the City of London, where almost all the nerves of the world pass through 130,000 offices large and small, you can find a fat little man strolling about, an old-fashioned top hat covering his head with Semitic features [...]. He is a man who, with Deterding, controls oil fields fourteen times richer than all the American fields." This is how a Catalan publication from the late 1930s described Marcus Samuel, one of the key figures in the European oil industry since the end of the 19th century.

One of the direct consequences of the tragic train accident that occurred in early 2026 in southern Spain is that many people will have discovered that the Japanese firm Hitachi also manufactures trains; in fact, they are the supplier for the Italian high-speed rail operator Iryo, one of whose trains was involved in the catastrophe. Traditionally, we have associated Hitachi much more with electronics and, specifically, with high-fidelity equipment, but the reality is that they have been producing trains for many decades. As is the case with most Japanese multinationals, when we look at their origins, we find surprising facts. This is because their beginnings are not linked to electronics or railways, but to a copper mine in the former Japanese province of Hitachi.

What do entrepreneur Elon Musk, assassinated President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, golfer Tiger Woods, former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and actress Sigourney Weaver have in common? Oddly enough, they all share the common thread of having studied at Stanford University in California, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It has produced 58 Nobel laureates, in addition to a vast number of high-ranking officials in both the business world and the US public administration. This highly successful university was founded in 1885 as a result of a personal tragedy. Its founder, Leland Stanford, suffered the death of his teenage son from typhus and decided to create the university in his memory. At the time, Stanford had already amassed a considerable fortune, largely through his railroad business.

On June 29, 1915, amidst a chaotic members' assembly, FC Barcelona elected a new president. The reason for the disarray at that meeting lay in a maneuver by the opposition to boycott the appointment of the then-interim president, Army Captain Joaquín Peris de Vargas, the clear favorite to win the vote. Following orders from the Captain General of Catalonia, who had received a mysterious letter from the opposition, Peris withdrew from the election, much to everyone's astonishment. The beneficiary of this last-minute move was Rafael Llopart Vidaud, a former board member and a native of Cuba—like Peris—who would become the new president. Llopart's birth in the Antilles and his second French surname were side effects of the adventure his father, Rafael Llopart Ferret, had embarked upon many years earlier.

On Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona, ​​at the intersection with Carrer d'Aragó, stands one of the area's most prominent buildings. It was built in 1930 by the architect Joan Padró Fornaguera to serve as the headquarters of the burgeoning chemical company Anónima Cros. Many years later, when the company relocated, the building housed several tenants, including the Fashion Café—a restaurant promoted by various [unclear - possibly "businesses" or "restaurants"]. top models at the time—and the telecommunications company Amena—Retevisión's mobile phone subsidiary—until the multinational fashion company Burberry moved in in 2001. Although for a time the Spanish subsidiary of this firm was owned by Catalan shareholders, the Mora family, it cannot be overlooked that the key figure in the company was its founder, the British Thomas Burberry.

On May 19, 1845, an expedition departed from Greenhithe, United Kingdom, with the aim of reaching the Arctic and navigating, for the first time, the route known as the Northwest Passage, which linked Canada to the North Pole and would allow for the discovery of a navigable connection to the Atlantic. For centuries, and for commercial reasons, there had been an aspiration to find a northern route connecting Europe with Asia. The main ships of the 1845 expedition were the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, which had a crew of about 130 people led by Captain John Franklin.

Spring 1932. Inside an apartment at number 5 Avenue Victor Emmanuel III, in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, a gunshot is heard. When the police arrive, they discover the lifeless body of Ivar Kreuger, one of the most prominent business magnates of the time in both Europe and the United States. Everything points to suicide.

A few weeks ago, we discussed the Swedish businessman Olof Aschberg, who was known for his financial support of the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War. To find a similar example, but on the other side of the divide, we don't have to travel far, because right here in Scandinavia we find Torkild Rieber, the head of Texaco and a major financier of the Francoist side through the supply of oil.

More than a century has passed since his debut with the first team, but his name still resonates among Barça fans. Josep Samitier, the great media star of Barça in the 1920s, remains part of the pantheon of Barcelona legends. The adjective "media star" is fitting because, in addition to being a phenomenal footballer who led the club's first golden age, he also had an unprecedented reach for a player of that era. Countless magazine covers, advertisements, films, and even friendships with idols from other areas of the entertainment world, such as Carlos Gardel and Maurice Chevalier, are proof that this player transcended the boundaries of the pitch to become an icon of Catalan society in the early 20th century.

The last decades of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th were a time when electrification became fashionable. The realization that the Pyrenean waterfalls could be a source of energy forever changed both the landscape and the country's business ecosystem. Some key figures in this process were Carles Montañès Criquillion, Frederick S. Pearson, and Emili Riu Periquet, among others. But less well-known today, yet with the same entrepreneurial spirit as the others, was the engineer Lluís Rouvière Bula, who not only dedicated himself to electricity but also designed highly significant railway projects.

As we have already seen throughout this series, the influence of Catalan entrepreneurs in the Americas—especially in the Antilles—during the 18th and 19th centuries was remarkable. Figures such as [names of figures] left their mark on those lands. Facundo Bacardí Massó, Josep Xifré Casas, Josep Ventosa Soler and Jaume Partagàs Ravell, some of whom built brands that still endure today. One of the most common places of origin for these entrepreneurs was the Maresme region, as is the case of Josep Baró Blanxart, who left his native Canet at a very young age to embark for Havana.

In the heart of the Vallès Oriental region, on a plot of land halfway between the Circuit de Catalunya and the town of Granollers, stands a large industrial building proudly displaying the COTY logo in highly visible blue letters. This is the main production center on the Iberian Peninsula for one of the world's largest multinational cosmetics and fragrance companies.

In the 1950s and 60s, the competition among shipowners to possess the largest tanker in the world's oil fleet intensely shook the oil market. The main protagonists of this battle were the Greeks Stavros Niarchos and Aristotle Onassis, and the American Daniel Keith Ludwig, who would eventually become one of the richest men in the world.

When discussing the Spanish Civil War, the support received by the Nationalist side is often mentioned, notably the financing provided by the Mallorcan magnate Joan March Ordinas, who, with his own capital or that of others, guaranteed Franco sufficient resources to win the war; or the support of the American company Texaco in terms of oil. Less well-known is the international economic aid received by the Republican side, and in this respect, one name stands out: that of the Swedish banker Olof Aschberg, forgotten by history, but a key figure in global geopolitics for many decades.

When discussing powerful families that have amassed fortunes and influenced the governments of their time, the first name that undoubtedly comes to mind is Rothschild, the Central European family that, during the Napoleonic Wars, achieved a position of dominance among major European corporations. But their power required allies to manage their businesses in the various territories where they held interests, and one such partner was the Bauer family, who represented them in the Iberian Peninsula.