Make the plane wait for me: the complex life of a millionaire

How they live, the requests they make and the people that help to organize their lives

Paqui Ramos

Cadena SER16/10/2022 – 10:15 h CEST

Madrid / Barcelona

We’re such a miserable bunch that during the two hours of the train journey from Madrid to Barcelona, we couldn’t think of a single extravagant thing to request to the Albertas. When you don’t belong to that world, you don’t have the experience or the imagination to know all the things that you could request and, better (or worse) still, everything that could be within your reach, even before you request it.

Lourdes Carbó worked in the Family Office for a businessman until the day that he and his family decided to leave for Miami and she decided to stay and take care of the things he needed in Barcelona. “A millionaire’s life is very complex. You cannot compare having a house to manage to have five houses, a yacht and a private jet, as well as the children’s school in a foreign country”.  They are constantly on business trips and they don’t have time to deal with day-to-day issues. “If they have a lawyer or a financial advisor to deal with their assets, why would they want to take care of buying tickets or calling a plumber?” That’s where Alberta La Grup comes in , the company that Lourdes founded 15 years ago with her ex-boss as her first client.

Throughout the morning that we spent with her almost all-female team, we realise that they are real go-getters whose strongest talent is in taking action and finding the right person to contact: “the best padel instructor, the best horse trainer, a dog-walker, the person to fix something very specific.” They ask them for everything: from picking up a ring from the jewellers to renting a car to see how it fits in the garage before they decide to buy it. Booking tickets for a particular concert, a table in a luxury restaurant, booking a villa for the Christmas holidays that comes complete with a butler, babysitter, housekeeping service, gardener, etc. They themselves hire, and sometimes even train, these people.

Juanjo is interested in having dinner with Penélope Cruz. Could they make it happen? Anything is possible “as long as it isn’t illegal or immoral”. In their 15 years of work, they have realised that the key is in having the right information, as well as good contacts and persuasive skills. Is it possible to be empathetic towards someone who spends more in a month than you will have in a lifetime? With someone who doesn’t care about making a plane wait 20 minutes because they’re running late? With someone who interrupts a meeting with an oncologist? Empathy for them is getting into the mind-set of someone else, but always keeping your feet firmly on the ground. It’s hard to keep your cool when you go up to the penthouse in the Antares Tower and take a look around  the 660 square-metre designer apartment with a terrace overlooking the whole of Barcelona and a good part of the Mediterranean. As Juanjo says, “having all of this should make you afraid of going outside – maybe a brick will fall on your head and you will lose everything”.