Del Pino is the chairman of Ferrovial, a Spanish construction and infrastructure company with revenue of 6.7 billion euros ($8 billion) in 2021. Del Pino owns a fifth of the Madrid-based business, which is involved in the operation of toll roads, car parks and Heathrow Airport, Europe's biggest aviation hub.
Rafael Del Pino's net worth of $5.25B can buy ...
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The majority of Del Pino's fortune derives from his major stake in Ferrovial, a Madrid-based engineering and construction company. The company was founded by his father in 1952 as a supplier of railway sleepers to Spain's train network and has operations in Spain, and across America and Europe. It's involved in the operation of toll roads, car parks and Heathrow Airport, according to Ferrovial's website.
He controls a 20.1% stake in the business through Netherlands, Amsterdam-based investment company Rijn Capital, according to Ferrovial's 2021 annual report.
Del Pino has an undisclosed stake in Casa Grande De Cartagena, the Del Pino family office, which was established with the proceeds from the 2006 sale of Ferrovial shares worth about 1.4 billion euros ($1.8 billion), according to the annual report from that year. The office invested in stainless-steelmaker Acerinox, wind-turbine maker Gamesa, Spanish lender Banco Pastor, computer-services company Indra Sistemas and in sugar producer Ebro Puleva. The asset is not included in the valuation because his stake is unconfirmed.
The value of his cash holdings is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes, charitable contributions and market performance.
Jose Luis Cobas del Pozo, a Ferrovial spokesman, declined to comment on Del Pino's net worth.
Rafael Del Pino was born in 1958 to Rafael Del Pino Moreno and Ana Maria Calvo-Sotelo, the sister of Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, who became Spain's Prime minister in 1981. Rafael Del Pino's father was a civil engineer who started Ferrovial in 1952 to supply Spain's railways with sleepers, the beams used to keep the rails evenly spaced and upright. As the country's economy grew, so did Ferrovial and Del Pino Moreno earned the nickname, 'El Rey de Los Ladrillos,' or 'The King of Bricks.'
The eldest son of five children, he graduated in Civil Engineering from the Universidad Politecnica Madrid before starting at Ferrovial in 1981, where his first project involved working on a road project in Libya. He married his first wife, Cristina, in 1984, and headed to Boston for graduate studies, receiving an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT in 1986. He returned to Ferrovial and, in 1992, was named CEO. Under his leadership the company won contracts to build Seville Expo, the Barcelona Olympics and the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. Ferrovial began trading publicly in May 1999.
The billionaire's wife died in 1998. Details were not publicly released. His father retired to focus on philanthropic activities in 2000, and Del Pino was named chairman. His father died in 2008, four years after an accident at sea paralyzed him.
The family beat out a consortium led by Goldman Sachs in 2006, paying $20 billion for the airport authority of the United Kingdom, BAA, which owned Heathrow Airport and six regional airports. Regulators forced them to sell London's Gatwick and Stanstead to increase competition. They took the issue to court in the hopes of reversing the decision and lost, later selling almost 26 percent of Heathrow to sovereign wealth funds from China and Qatar to reduce debt.
In 2007, the billionaire married Astrid Gil Casares, a former JPMorgan banker, in Chinchon, south of Madrid. He lives with his new wife and his three children from his first marriage.