Spain seized José María Ruiz-Mateos's Rumasa group by decree in 1983, and his second group collapsed in 2011

José María Ruiz-Mateos founded Rumasa in 1961 on a sherry supply deal with Harveys of Bristol. By 1983 it held about 700 companies, including banks, hotels and the Galerías Preciados stores, and employed about 60,000 people. On 23 February 1983 the government expropriated the whole group by Royal Decree-Law 2/1983. It cited missing audits, obstruction of Bank of Spain inspectors and debts of about 30 billion pesetas to the tax office and social security. Ruiz-Mateos fled to London on 4 March 1983. On 2 December 1983 the Constitutional Court upheld the decree on a 6 to 6 tie broken by its president's casting vote. He was arrested at Frankfurt airport on 25 April 1985 and extradited on 1 December 1985. He dressed as Superman at protests^†. In May 1989 he hit former finance minister Miguel Boyer outside a Madrid court. The same year he was elected to the European Parliament. The courts gave the family no compensation. In 2005 he started Nueva Rumasa, which sold 8 percent promissory notes to small investors. Its ten largest companies entered insolvency on 17 February 2011 with about €700 million of debt. He died in 2015, aged 84, with criminal cases pending. On 30 May 2025 the National Court sentenced six of his 13 children to seven years and four months each for fraud^†. In 2026 none of the original Rumasa companies belongs to the family.