Spain mourns Pedro de Churruca, JLL legend.

Pedro de Churruca, director general of Jones Lang LaSalle between 1995 and 2015 and considered the patriarch of the company in Spain has passed away.

Pedro Churruca y Diez de Rivera was born in 1956 and joined JLL’s Spanish office in 1988 navigating it through times of booms and busts including difficult market environments like the US savings & loans crisis during which American & British companies & financiers fled the country and the recent devastating Great Recession.

As if he had taken Rudyard Kipling’s poem to heart, Pedro, the Marquis of Valterra, could «walk with kings – nor lose the common touch». The son of the Marquis of Aycinena, a former ambassador to Spain, Pedro not only structured some of the markets largest deals but he would also enjoy sharing his knowledge with new talent as an avid lecturer in the Madrid Polytechnic’s real estate MBA (known locally as the master MDI).

Under his leadership, JLL grew to become a multifaceted corporation advising on all asset classes and at the forefront of Spain’s property consultancy sector.

Pedro was a charming optimist who never wanted to stop helping Spain become the global property investment powerhouse that it has become.

When asked to comment for a Wall Street Journal article in February of 2015, his comments fuelled confidence into the recovering retail property subsector and by this time he had already been recommending that investors return to residential since 2011. He believed in investing in Spanish real estate.

The sector owes him an eternal debt of gratitude and we send our condolences to his wife Margarita Maiza and daughters Marta & Maria del Pilar.