Maricarmen ran a property firm and later sat on the board of a rental landlord

María del Carmen Abascal Martín, the Madrid Retiro district resident who became a symbol against evictions, appears in the Madrid Companies Registry as sole director of FIEBA SA and board member of JINUR SA, two companies dedicated to investing in property and renting it out.

The public story of María del Carmen Abascal Martín, deceased and known as Maricarmen, cast her as the face of the Spanish government's housing decree-law under Pedro Sánchez. Before that, for two decades, she occupied a flat in Madrid's Retiro district under an old-rent contract that has since been abolished, and she was eventually evicted. What had not come to light until now is her corporate past: according to the company extract obtained from the Companies Registry, Abascal was sole director of FIEBA SA and, later, board member and deputy secretary of the board of JINUR SA.

## Two companies sharing the same Madrid address

FIEBA SA and JINUR SA shared their registered office at calle Pradillo 36, Madrid. The Official State Gazette of 1982 describes FIEBA SA as a securities investment company. JINUR SA's corporate purpose, as recorded in the company extract, was "making investments in real estate and exploiting them through leasing", as well as developing and subdividing plots of land.

Abascal's appointment as a board member of JINUR SA took place on **1 July 1994**, at a general shareholders' meeting, alongside three other board members. All of them already sat on the governing body of FIEBA SA and formalised their departure from it in August 1994, a month after joining JINUR. The move was, in practice, a transfer of resources between two companies within the same property investment fund.

## From FIEBA's board to JINUR's

The registry documents state that the board members had the power to "represent the company in court", enter into contracts, take part in acts and negotiations, and administer "all kinds of real estate and movable property" belonging to the company. Abascal stepped down as deputy secretary of JINUR SA on **1 July 1995**, just one year after her appointment, according to the board resolution recorded in the registry information.

Five years later, in **2000**, the JINUR SA name disappeared and the company was absorbed, through a new merger, into BASCADI SA, another property investment company. Abascal's corporate career therefore took place in the very sector that later became a political target: buying homes to rent them out.

## The rumour about the pharmaceutical company that appears in no registry

Neither Abascal, nor her lawyer, nor the Tenants' Union publicly disclosed where she had worked during the eviction proceedings. What did emerge, from people close to her, was that she studied typing and secretarial skills. In the most media-heavy weeks trinc the launch of the decree, a rumour spread that she had been a civil servant.

The newspaper **El País** reported in 2024, based on an interview with the woman herself, that she had worked as "secretary to the board of a pharmaceutical company". An analysis of the corporate purposes of all the companies in which Abascal held an administrative position of power shows no pharmaceutical business whatsoever. The documents consulted point to a profile linked to property investment, not the drug industry.

The overlap between the public symbol and the registry record raises an uncomfortable question about how political icons are built. It also serves as a reminder that the Companies Registry is an open source: anyone can look up who ran which company, when and with what corporate purpose. These data should be handled with caution and always cross-checked against official documentation before drawing conclusions.