César Alierta

César Alierta   (businessman)
Born	César Alierta Izuel 5 May 1945 Zaragoza, Spain
Died	10 January 2024 (Age 78) Zaragoza, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Alma mater	University of Zaragoza, Columbia Business School
Criminal charge	insider trading
Parents	• Cesáreo Alierta • Juana Izuel Labad
Spouse	Ana Cristina Placer
Interests	Rodrigo Rato
Double Bilderberger Spanish businessman

César Alierta Izuel was a Spanish businessman, who was the chief executive officer and chairman of the telecom corporation Telefónica S.A. from July 2000 until 2016, which was in the process of world-wide expansion. His career was not hindered despite admitting to insider trading. He attended two Bilderberg meetings, in 2010, and again in 2016 as he was retiring.

Education

Alierta received a bachelor's degree in Law at the University of Zaragoza in 1967. Three years after his degree, he got an MBA at Columbia University.

Career

In 1970, he began his career as a financial analyst at the bank Banco Urquijo in Madrid, where he rose to the position of head of the division. in 1985 he started his own business and founded the securities trading company Beta Capital, which he headed until 1996. In 1991 he became a member of the Supervisory Board of the Madrid Stock Exchange.

In 1996, the conservative Prime Minister José María Aznar appointed him president of the then still partially state-owned tobacco company Tabacalera. Alierta successfully completed the privatization and merged Tabacalera with its French competitor Seita to form Altadis.

Alierta was considered a close confidant of the then Minister of Economy and later Director General of the International Monetary Fund (until 2007), Rodrigo Rato.

In 2000, at the initiative of prime minister Aznar, he was appointed chairman of Telefónica, replacing Juan Villalonga. Telefónica is one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. Telefónica had relatively little debt, was extremely profitable and took advantage above all of the pull of mobile telephony in Latin America, which was already important at the time of Villalonga. In the Spanish national market, the company has 80% of the market and is a leader in the Latin American markets.

On September 6, 2009 César Alierta led one of the largest strategic alliances in the world of communications with the Asian operator China Unicom. According to the agreement, both companies commit to invest each the equivalent of $1 billion in the purchase of shares of the other. The most important part of the cooperation includes research and development, and common practice in knowledge management and new technologies. This alliance aims to allowed Telefónica to strengthen its leadership and, together with its Chinese counterpart, have some 550 million customers worldwide.

On March 29, 2016, he announced his resignation, appointing José María Álvarez-Pallete, until then CEO, as his successor. After his resignation, Alierta became the president of the Telefónica Foundation.

Insider trading

The Wall Street Journal reported that "A Spanish court found that César Alierta, chairman of Telefónica SA, enriched himself through insider trading before he joined the telecom company, but it acquitted him on the ground that the statute of limitations had run out".

In 1997, together with his wife Ana Cristina Placer and his nephew Luis Javier Placer, he had earned 1.86 million euros within a short period of time by buying Tabacalera shares and pseudo-selling a company, and thus came under suspicion of insider trading. They had bought the securities shortly before Tabacalera (Altadis since 1999) took over the US cigar company Havatampa, which drove the share price up. At the center of the investigation was the investment company Creaciones Baluarte, founded by Alierta and his wife in May 1997. After just one month, the company was sold again – to Placer. At the time, he was a small analyst at Salomon Brothers in London and therefore hardly financially able to take over Creaciones Baluarte. He is said to have only been a frontman for his uncle. Alierta himself denied the allegations. An initial investigation of this deal was unsuccessfully aborted in 1998; investigations that were resumed at the end of 2005 probably fizzled due to the statute of limitations.

In June 2007, the Supreme Court annulled the decision of the Provincial High Court, ratifying the presence of criminal evidence. For this reason, César Alierta was tried again on April 14, 2009, by the Provincial High Court of Madrid. Finally, the Provincial Court of Madrid, according to the judgment handed down on July 17, 2009, considered it proven that the crime of insider trading was committed and that between Alierta and his nephew Javier Placer "there was" a "common agreement" to get an "economic benefit" by "collecting a considerable number of shares of Tabacalera". However, he acquitted of the accusation of insider trading by accepting the statute of limitations for the crime.

Executive pay

In 2011 he was the third highest paid executive on the Spanish stock Market with a total remuneration of 10.27 million euros. In 2012 his remuneration was 6.3 million euros. In 2013 he pocketed 5.8 million euros. In 2014 he pocketed a total of 6.7 million.

In 2015 he received 8.69 million due to the application of a remuneration plan with 312,251 shares.

Telefónica raised his pension plan to 54.2 million euros with a "special annual fixed allowance" of 500,000 euros.

Death

César Alierta suffered from cardiovascular problems during the last years of his life. He died on January 10, 2024 as a result of a respiratory illness aggravated by his heart ailment.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2010	3 June 2010	6 June 2010	Spain Hotel Dolce Sitges Barcelona	The 122 guests met in the Hotel Dolce Sitges, Barcelona, Spain.
Bilderberg/2016	9 June 2016	12 June 2016	Germany Dresden	The 2016 Bilderberg meeting took place in Dresden, Germany.
WEF/Annual Meeting/2012	25 January 2012	29 January 2012	Switzerland	2113 guests in Davos

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