The Luxurious World of Telefónica: Memories of Wealth and Power

The first time I heard about Telefónica was in Luarca and I was not over five years old. My grandmother Magdalena, in whose house I spent the long summers of that time, made me wait for the arrival of her cousin Gumersindo Rico who came to pick me up for a morning ride in one of the luxurious vehicles she owned. That he had five, or more, as I later learned from taxi drivers at a nearby stop. The list was overwhelming. A Rolls-Royce, a Panhard, a Hispano-Suiza, a Cadillac, a Bentley and some more that I don’t remember now.

At five years old, you don’t know many things, but not so much that you don’t know that houses and cars are outward signs of wealth, and you seemed like one of those lucky ones. Just to spend the summer she had a mansion, rather a mansion, that could well compete with some of those that stood in Castellana before the war. Come on, he lived quite well. He used to be punctual and would enter the bass room shouting happily. “Is that child ready?” Then we went to the lighthouse and the chapel of Christ that is processed along the steep slopes during Holy Week in Luarque.

I don’t know what the intensity of his devotion was, but after a few minutes we were back in the car, but not before taking one last look at the beautiful landscape of the Asturian coast. Before returning to grandma’s house we stopped again to greet an acquaintance or test the proper functioning of the car’s engine. During the time he was president of Telefónica he employed quite a few Asturians. A staff with very good conditions for the kind of work required by a company whose one of its objectives was to facilitate long-distance conversations. And no one is better equipped for that function than an Asturian with a loud and clear voice. Years later, reading Manuel Azaña’s memoirs reaffirmed my impression of the way a five-year-old child chooses the memories he wants to keep. The man who was president of the Second Republic draws out a hastifine prose, and wonders how Rico came to run such an important company. Azaña does not express it, but one does not have to be especially sharp to deduce that he considers him a member of Freemasonry, or close to it.

Since he stopped enjoying those long summers in Luarca, he also stopped seeing his son Gumersindo, better known affectionately as Guminín, who was the Spanish ambassador in Cuba and Algeria. I had the opportunity to greet her daughter Mercedes de ella when she was spending a few days in A Coruña at the Bugallals’ house. Few people I met with greater vitality and lucidity. I say the above upon learning of the surprising entry of a Saudi Arabian state company into 9.9% of Telefónica’s shareholding, making it the majority shareholder. The Spanish Government, which was not informed of the operation until the last moment, assures that financial sovereignty is guaranteed. The privatization of Telefónica was random. A colleague of President Aznar’s desk was very favored.

2023-09-12 03:33:47
#Gumersindo #Ricos #Telefónica