meeting on eve of Christmas Eve

The next Christmas is expected to move within the Gullón family, owners of Gullón Cookies. The main Spanish cookie maker has convened an extraordinary meeting on Christmas Eve at the request of its minority shareholders Félix and Rubén Gullón Rodríguez, brothers of the new president, Lourdes Gullón, and faced for years their mother and main shareholder, Teresa Rodríguez Sainz-Rojas , and the CEO of the Palentino group, Juan Miguel Martínez Gabaldón.

Both brothers, who were expelled in June from the board of directors of Gullón by the matriarch, who controls more than 60% of the Palencia group, now ask to "reorganize" that body with the "balanced incorporation of proprietary and independent directors", as read in the convocation of the assembly that they have asked to convene and that, if there were not enough quorum, it would be held in the second call on Christmas Eve.

Both brothers, who also propose to address a "strategic plan of the company, including the policy of digital transformation", thus try to regain presence in the highest body of the company in another chapter of this soap opera, a family brawl similar to those that have lived in the past other large Spanish family-owned companies such as El Corte Inglés, Freixenet or Eulen.

Expulsion in June

The reorganization of the Gullón council that Félix and Rubén Gullón claim has little chance of success, given that between the two they account for just over 8% of the shares. If it occurs, it would be the second in six months. Both were expelled in June with the other wayward brother, Hernán Gullón, and the council was reduced to only five members.

Then, Teresa Rodríguez (born 1942) left the executive presidency of Gullón after 36 years at the helm of the group to become honorary president. The (non-executive) presidency fell to one of his main supporters, his daughter Lourdes, and Rodriguez's trust officer and second shareholder with just over 20%, Martínez Gabaldón, became CEO.

In June, three other direct family members of the company's owners also left the council: two sons of Martínez Gabaldón and the husband of the new president; and two independent members entered, in pursuit of the "professionalization" of that body, according to Gullón. The vice-presidency remained in the hands of Salvador Ruiz Gallud, former general director of the Tax Agency with Cristóbal Montoro and partner of Economic Team, the office that founded the former Minister of Finance.

Now, two of the three brotherly brothers (all remain as group managers) maneuver to regain power in the council after the expulsion of June, which had been forging for years and that was a kind of 'light' reissue of catharsis of 2010.

Then, the matriarch of the plan gave a blow after the rebellion of her three sons and her two brothers, who in 2009 forced her resignation as president. In response, Rodriguez forced an extraordinary meeting that will pass to the annals of the Spanish business vaudeville: he had to celebrate it with his daughter and his trusted manager inside a car (a black Mercedes: their children did not let them enter the offices of Gullón). Rodriguez made her weight in the capital to be appointed sole administrator and recover the reins of the group.

For his part, Martínez Gabaldón, who had been fired by the advisors in rebellion (they came to complain against him for misappropriation and fraud) returned to the company after declaring the dismissal of his justice and after collecting compensation of more than 10 million of euros.

Short truce

Subsequently, the three children would be readmitted to the highest management body of the company, but the peace was short-lived. The wayward brothers (headed by Benjamin, Felix) do not seem willing to give in their claim to gain power against the rise of Gabaldón, whose shareholder weight has grown in recent years. The now first executive of the cookie maker has been for more than 30 years the main support of the matriarch in her policy of growing by reinvesting the benefits ("We have never distributed dividend", he affirmed recently) and without recourse to indebtedness.

Rodríguez successfully assumed the controls of the company after the sudden death in 1983 of her husband, José Manuel Gullón González, in a traffic accident. Together with his trusted director (hired in 1986), he managed to convert a group that then barely employed a hundred people in the first independent cookie maker in Spain. The company based in Aguilar de Campoo, is one of the largest food groups in the country, with 1,600 employees, presence in 80 countries and sales of 360 million in 2018.

Last year he broke his billing record, which he plans to raise to 380 million this year and shoot up to 600 million in five years. In 2017, the last year in which it presented accounts in the Mercantile Registry, Galletas Gullón achieved a profit of 41.9 million after billing 330 million, which represented a sales increase of close to 5%. Then he attributed it "to the commercial effort made by the Company and the declining economic situation that is being experienced worldwide from which the biscuit industry is benefited by marketing food products at low cost to the consumer."