About

In 1934, the founders Ramón Areces Rodriguez and Cesar Rodriguez Gonzalez bought a tailor shop (which had opened in 1890) located on one of Madrid most central streets, calle Preciados, and made it into a limited company. Around 1920, aged 15, Areces had gone to Havana, Cuba, and worked at the famous retail chain Almacenes El Encanto, where he learned the basics of department store business. In 1940, he turned the tailor shop into the current corporation El Corte Inglés, S.A.. On the death of Areces in 1989, his nephews, Isidoro Álvarez, who later became the president, Luis Areces Rodriguez and David Gonzalez Fernandez were named his successors and quickly became some of the most powerful men in Spain. In 1995, El Corte Inglés bought out its only serious competitor, Galerías Preciados, which had entered bankruptcy.