To talk about the surname Abelló is to talk about success in the pharmaceutical business. But even more so in recent years, when the Madrid businessman, with an eye for new market opportunities, launched himself into a vein of the market yet to be explored. In 2016, Juan Abelló entered the medicinal cannabis business through Alcaliber SA, a company controlled 60 percent by the Torreal group, the investment company from which most of the businessman’s businesses originate. Abelló signed an agreement that went beyond a mere handshake. It was an international strategic alliance with Canopy Growth Corporation and its German subsidiary, Spektrum Cannabis GmbH, to fully enter the medicinal cannabis business.
It was not Abelló’s first foray into the world of opiates. Alcaliber, a company based in Spain, already led the global ranking of morphine, with 27% of world production, and 18% of thebaine, another opiate alkaloid used in numerous drugs. In addition, it held several exclusive licenses to produce the Papaver Somniferum plant, commonly known as the Opium Poppy, which contains chemical components from which opium is derived. The new alliance was a giant step for the company, expanding the business beyond morphine and launching itself fully into the export of cannabis. The agreement allowed the Abellós access to a series of varieties and seeds for cultivation and subsequent distribution worldwide following strict medical standards and protocols.
If the agreement was complex, the corporate structure used by Juan Abelló to start it up is even more so. To this end, in 2018, the businessman founded Linneo Health SL, a company dedicated to the “activities of cultivation, production, manufacturing, import, export, distribution and trade of cannabis and its products for medical and scientific purposes”. The company is chaired by Luxalba Hispania SL, a consultancy based on Calle Génova in Madrid, owned by Abelló and which, in turn, is owned by two other companies: Metania Hispania SL and Linneo Topco SL. These companies participated in the corporate structure of two other companies, SARL Alfa Luxco and Progavia Hispania SL, which depend on the parent company, Alfa Topco SL.
According to data recently updated by the company itself, Alcaliber SA had a turnover of 55.6 million euros in 2023. With 176 employees on staff, Alcaliber exceeded the previous year’s sales by half a million euros, heading towards its historic turnover ceiling achieved two years ago, when the company reached the record figure of 60 million euros. The company has undergone staff cuts since 2021, coinciding with the Covid pandemic, a year in which turnover fell to 40 million euros. The company filed a ERE (employment regulation file) in 2023, which has affected 10 percent of the group’s 240 workers spread across the three work centers in Madrid, Albacete and Toledo. With these adjustments, they are moving forward in anticipation of regulation of the sector. According to the Ministry of Health, only eight companies in Spain are licensed to produce cannabis for medical and scientific purposes. Alcaliber is the only one with a “full license”, from start to finish of the production process, from planting to exporting the product. In addition, it has the largest number of hectares planted and, due to its experience with opiates, the one with the greatest margin for export, since their use in Spain is prohibited. A multi-million dollar business that clashes with legislation that is still in its infancy, as pointed out by Manuel Guzmán, vice president of the Spanish Observatory of Medicinal Cannabis and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Complutense University of Madrid. According to Guzmán, “there is a lack of a national program for dispensing medicinal cannabis, coordinated by the Ministry of Health and the Spanish Agency for Medicines.”
Abelló is the third generation of entrepreneurs who have turned Torreal into one of the most valuable companies. He is present in diverse groups ranging from infrastructure, leisure, education and transport, with investments in groups such as Saba, Imagina, Ingesport, Talgo, Aston Martin and Laureate. Juan Abelló Gallo inherited the business empire from his father, the chemist Juan Abelló Pascual, who was a pioneer in the medical industry of narcotics and antibiotics. The company’s take-off dates back to 1933, when Laboratorios Abelló requested for the first time in Spain the import of 400 kilograms of opium, under the regulations of the Spanish Narcotics Industry. In 1971, Laboratorios Abelló obtained permission to test fields in Spain where morphine could be obtained from poppy straw. Two years later, Alcaliber emerged to channel that business. In 1974, the government of the time authorized Alcaliber to cultivate and produce opium extracts from Adopidera, and to export the surplus production.
Ana Gamazo’s business from Hohenlohe
The collector A few months ago, the Spanish fund Persepolis closed the sale of a building in Madrid, located on Calle Padilla in Madrid and valued at 80 million euros, to a hotel chain. This company, in which Marcelo Berenstein, brother-in-law of Prince Kubrat of Bulgaria, is a partner, has invested 200 million euros in this ambitious project, and is dedicated to the renovation and sale of this and two other buildings in the capital, which will be linked to five-star hotel services. El Quexigal, the family estate in Cebreros (Ávila) that was the hunting lodge of Felipe II and today belongs to the Álvarez family, where she married Juan Abelló, will also soon be converted into a luxury rural hotel.
The saga of the Abelló Gamazo
The couple He has four children (Juan, Claudio, Alejandro, Christian and Miguel) and eight grandchildren. Christian’s businesses have appeared on the black pages several times, as he has several companies that own part of the capital’s underground, focusing their business on parking spaces. In 2020, Juan Abelló, who was then 78 years old, decided to step aside from the company that has capitalised on his investments: Torreal, thus leaving the baton and the position of executive vice president to his son Miguel. In September 2023, at the wedding of Ignacio, the son of Rafael del Pino (Ferrovial), with Pilar Montes Yebra, we were able to see parents and children, on what was a great VIP business carpet.