Fadesa was founded at the end of the 1970s in A Coruña. It specialized in the development of great projects of protected house. In 1993, its activity outside Galicia begun, initially in Castile and León and then in the rest of communities of Spain. At the moment, the firm is present all over the Spanish territory through twenty delegations and more than fifty points of sale. In 1999, Fadesa expanded internationally for the first time, entering the Portuguese market, and in 2000 it opened its delegation in Morocco. At the international level, it participates in projects like the touristic resort of Saīdia, Morocco with a surface of 300,000 square meters. It is also present in a few Eastern European countries such as Hungary and Romania. At the end of 2006 Fadesa achieved sales of €1.281 billion. On December 14, 2007 Fadesa merged with Martinsa, another real estate and construction company, through an IPO.
Financial difficulties
In 2007 Fadesa sold 36% less houses than in 2006, and its debt increased to €5.153 billion due to the crash of the Spanish property bubble. On July 14, 2008 Martinsa-Fadesa failed to acquire an additional €150 million in credit to renegotiate €4 billion of its debt. The company lost 70% of its stock value in two days and was advocated to file for bankruptcy in Spain's biggest ever corporate default. The firm subsequently presented a labor force adjustment plan which would result in the loss of 23% of its employees. In March 2015, the company filed for bankruptcy, holding assets worth €2.4 billion with debts worth €7.0 billion, making its collapse one of the biggest bankruptcies in Spanish history. Trade of the company stocks were abruptly suspended, leaving no chance for its investors to unload them. The liquidation of the company started the following month. The company was definitely banned from trading on the stock exchange in October 2015. In July 2018, Martinsa-Fadesa entered the final phase of liquidation. The website martinsafadesaliquidacion.es was set up to follow the liquidation process. In November 2018, in the aftermath of the crash, the lawyer Antonia Magdaleno was found responsible for the giant debt of the company and sentenced to 4 years in jail.
Operations
Martinsa-Fadesa had two main divisions — real estate and asset management. Real estate is the traditional division through which it engages in the promotion of all types of homes, whether as a first or second residence. Asset management develops basically hotel projects and golf courses. It retains the ownership of the asset and outsource the operation to a specialized third party.
