The whisperers. This is how José Miguel Contreras and Miguel Barroso, founder of Globomedia and former Secretary of State for Communication with the Zapatero government respectively, are known in the political sphere and in the media. They are known like this because they have become Moncloa’s media right hand.
“Pedro Sánchez prioritizes his opinion above all else and does not make a decision without counting them,” say sources in the sector. Thus, already before the forecasts of a bump in the next general elections, both have now proposed to orchestrate around Prisa the great editorial group in support of the Government.
Telefónica announced in mid-May that it had sold 7% of the shares it owned in Prisa to the Global Alconaba company for just over 34 million. According to the Informa portal, this company was born on March 24, 2022 by Andrés Varela Entrecanales, sole administrator, and with a share capital of 3,600 euros.
But Varela Entrecanales is not alone. As the firm itself acknowledged, its shareholders also include Alberto Knapp, founder and president of The Cocktail design consultancy, and Daniel Romero-Abreu, president and founder of the Thinking Heads consultancy. But behind it would be two other names, the true architects of this operation: José Miguel Contreras and Miguel Barroso.
Close up
This would not be the first time that there has been a rapprochement between Contreras and the communication group. At the beginning of March, Prisa bought Lacoproductora, the audiovisual company led by Contreras and with which the publisher of El País and La Ser now intends to do business by marketing programs and series. The amount was not made public then, but the sources consulted by this means assure that it amounts to 7 million euros, of which a part could have been used to buy that 7% that Telefónica owned. Contreras y Barroso would have reinvested 3 million in Prisa, requesting a bank loan for the rest, in an operation that amounted to 34 million in total.
Contreras, who was a partner of Varela Entrecanales in Globomedia, nevertheless denies that the amounts are those and assures that he has entered only 54,000 euros for Lacoproductora, also denying that he participates in the new operation with Barroso. “I am a shareholder of Prisa with slightly less than 1% of the capital. I have made the investments directly, not through other companies,” the businessman assured elEconomista.
The tandem known as the whisperers accumulates, in any case, more and more weight within Prisa. Barroso is a member of the board of directors and a member of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee and in March 2021 he was appointed as representative of Amber Capital, the majority shareholder of Prisa, which owns 29.84% of the capital.
In addition, it must be taken into account that before joining the Board of Directors as a proprietary director, he worked as a journalist for El País, among other media. And Barroso never acts alone. “Where he is, José Miguel Contreras is always behind,” say sources in the sector consulted by elEconomista.es.
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