Rumasa was a holding company

Holding company

A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...

 founded by Spanish entrepreneur José María Ruiz Mateos

José María Ruiz Mateos

José María Ruiz-Mateos y Jiménez de Tejada is a Spanish businessman.He began by exporting wine to England. He founded the conglomerate Rumasa and had a lot of influence in Spanish society. In 1983, the government of Spain expropriated the company...

 and expropriated

Nationalization

Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...

 by the Spanish government on February 23, 1983.

In 1982 Rumasa constituted 2% of the Spanish GDPhttp://www.elmundo.es/nuevaeconomia/2005/262/1108854001.html. The 700 different businesses with 65000 employees forming the holding, from banks to hotels, were partitioned and reprivatizated.

Ruiz Mateos fled the country days after the expropriation and was later jailed in Spain. The expropriation was ruled constitutional by the Spanish Constitutional Court in 1986. Ruíz Mateos was acquitted

Acquittal

In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...

by the Spanish Supreme Court in 1999, though he has never been compensated by the Spanish state.

Ruiz Mateos later founded "Nueva Rumasa" ("New Rumasa" http://www.elmundo.es/nuevaeconomia/2005/262/1108854001.html)