The company promoting the damaged building in Valencia, FBEX, owned by the Catalan businessman Juan Henares Parada, had planned more than 10,000 homes in Spain in 2005, at the height of the real estate boom. Its operations were concentrated in 60 developments in Catalonia, Valencia, Murcia and the Balearic Islands. The turnover in 2007 was 158 million euros, when its bank debt exceeded 1.1 billion euros. It is suspected that the materials on the façade of the Valencia building were highly flammable and facilitated the rapid spread of a fire that has caused four deaths, dozens of injuries and 14 missing.
The firm was under suspicion when the promoter had to testify as a witness before Judge Pablo Ruz in the case that investigated Jordi Pujol Ferrusola, the first-born son of the former president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, for an alleged crime of money laundering, as published by La Vanguardia in 2007. In an interview in El Mundo that same year, Juan Paradas spoke of expanding his business field to the communities of Aragón, Asturias and Cantabria, until reaching the entire national territory. And he was interested in obtaining land to build officially protected housing.
In March 2008, the firm began negotiations with 33 banks and savings banks to postpone the payment of part of its financial debt, which amounted to 1.1 billion euros in the case of its parent company. The refinancing was limited to 600 million, which is the debt linked to the purchase of final land for developments. In May 2010, he filed for bankruptcy in commercial court number 8 of Barcelona, ??with 640 million in debt, after having failed to reach an agreement with financial entities to refinance it. Legal sources indicated that the main creditors are Caixa Catalunya, Caja del Mediterráneo, Caixa Penedès and Sa Nostra, among around twenty savings banks and some banks.
The burned-out Valencia building was built in 2005, at the height of the real estate boom, by the Catalan developer FBEX, and is located in one of the most luxurious areas of Valencia, in the Campanar neighborhood. Composed of two towers, it has 143 homes and was inhabited by more than 400 residents. The apartments, at the time, cost more than 300,000 euros, according to neighbors; figure that at that time was considered very high.
The building burned down tonight in Valencia, an accident that left 4 dead, 14 injured and 19 missing, was promoted in the early 2000s as a “highest quality” construction. However, several experts have pointed out that it was the material used to build the façade that facilitated the rapid spread of the fire.
The “alocubond” consists of a façade built with polyurethane that covers the brick and is located behind the aluminum sheet that adorns it. Polyurethane is a highly flammable material. The vice president of the College of Industrial Technical Engineers of Valencia (Cogitival), Esther Puchades, commented that it was this composition that accelerated the fire that in a few minutes had trapped everything, encouraged by the strong west wind.
