Ismael Clemente

Ismael Clemente (Valencia del Mombuey, 1970), is the CEO and vice president of the Merlin Properties real estate group, of which he was also the main developer.

Early years
The son of teachers, he was born in Valencia del Mombuey (Badajoz). After completing his schooling at the Jesuit boarding school in Villafranca de los Barros, he graduated in Law and Business Administration and Management (E3) at Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE) in Madrid. He began his professional career at Arthur Andersen, where he met María Fernández Picazo, his wife, with whom he has six children. After working at Garrigues law firm, he began his career in the real estate sector. Throughout his career, he has held different positions at Bankers Trust REIB and Deutsche Bank Real Estate and RREEF.

Magic Real Estate and Merlin Properties
In the context of the 2008 Great Recession in the financial and real estate sectors, when he was asked to fire part of his team at Deutsche Bank, he preferred to leave. Finally, all his collaborators ended up leaving with him as well, and thanks to his contacts in the sector, he created Magic Real Estate, a real estate fund manager, in 2012. Two years later, he founded Merlin Properties, a real estate company. The name comes from a play on words, from a consultant who called it Proyecto Merlin, playing on the magic of the former name.

With more than twelve billion euros in assets, Merlin Properties soon became a benchmark in the Spanish real estate sector and among the largest Socimis in Europe. Since its IPO, Merlin Properties has led significant transactions in the sector in Spain, such as the acquisition of Testa inmuebles (a subsidiary of the Sacyr group) and the agreement to integrate Metrovacesa.