Increasing its stake in Merlin, exiting Sacyr, and the joint acquisition of The Ritz-Carlton Central Park in New York are the latest moves by Manuel Lao's conglomerate.
Manuel Lao Hernández, an Andalusian-born businessman based in Catalonia, is the owner of Nortia Capital, one of Spain’s most diversified and dynamic conglomerates. Built from the gaming and leisure industries, the family holding company now boasts investments in publicly traded companies, private equity funds, real estate assets, hotels, agriculture, food, financial services, and startups.
Alongside his brother Juan, Manuel Lao founded the slot machine, casino, bingo, and sports betting firm Cirsa in Terrassa (Barcelona) in 1978, turning it into one of the sector’s leading multinationals. In 2018, while holding 100% of the capital, Manuel Lao sold the company to the US private equity firm Blackstone in a deal that valued Cirsa at approximately €2 billion, including debt.
After exiting the gaming firm—which made its debut on the Spanish stock exchange last year—the businessman began investing through Nortia Capital. The company already held certain assets, such as the agricultural estate El Molinillo in Retuerta del Bullaque (Ciudad Real). Lao serves as chairman of the conglomerate, where he controls 97.14% of the capital; the remainder is shared among his wife, Rosa Gorina, and their three children. Their eldest son, Manuel Lao Gorina, serves as CEO of the family holding company.
With offices in Madrid and Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona), Nortia has executed more than twenty transactions since 2019, building an investment group with assets that currently total €1.85 billion, according to data provided by the company.
One of its first major moves came in 2020 with the purchase of a 5% stake in the listed real estate company Merlin Properties, where it has steadily increased its position. In March, Nortia backed Merlin’s latest capital increase—aimed at the data center business—and now holds an 8.50% stake, a package valued at €767 million based on Friday’s closing market price.
Merlin is currently its only direct investment in the stock market, after the holding company completed its exit from the construction group Sacyr in December by selling its 5.12% stake, a shareholding valued at €161 million. This divestment was part of Nortia’s “asset rotation strategy.” Since last October, the holding company’s executive director has been Fernando López Muñoz, CEO of the private banking firm Panghea Capital Partners. López Muñoz, a former private banker at Citi, replaced Juan Antonio Alcaraz, the former managing director of CaixaBank, at the helm of the holding firm.
Nortia’s operations are characterized by a “responsible investment vision, integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into every decision,” the holding company explained. The firm also emphasizes its commitment to sustainability, pointing to its investments in private equity and venture capital funds such as Serena Industrial Partners, McWin Food Ecosystem Fund, Q-Energy, and Andrómeda. In other segments, Nortia has also invested in Hyperion and Teleno Real Estate.
In the real estate sector, the company owns assets such as Casa Seat in Barcelona, while moving forward with the sale of a luxury residential development in Marbella. In the hospitality business, Nortia teamed up with Pulitzer in 2021 to form a boutique hotel firm, and in February, it joined forces with Mazabi to acquire a 45% stake in The Ritz-Carlton Central Park in New York.
In financial services, Manuel Lao’s holding company took a 15% stake in Arcano Capital in 2023 and entered the capital of MyInvestor a year later. In June 2025, it expanded into the insurance sector by acquiring 35% of Expertia.
Reorganization of the asset perimeter
Manuel Lao Hernández maintains gaming and leisure businesses—the original source of the businessman’s fortune—but for the past four years, his interests in this sector have been kept separate from Nortia Capital. In 2022, the holding company spun off its gaming and leisure firms in Argentina, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador, placing them under the umbrella of Halkkon Capital Partners. This company is also headquartered in Sant Cugat del Vallès and is equally owned by Manuel Lao, his wife, and their children. Among Halkkon Capital Partners’ most iconic assets is the floating casino in Buenos Aires, which, along with other gaming businesses, was excluded from the sale of Cirsa to Blackstone in 2018.
At the end of 2023, Nortia sold the management operating company of the four-star hotel Don Cándido in Terrassa to the Hotusa hotel group, although the building itself remains in the hands of the family holding company.