About

Grupo Planeta is Spain’s leading family-owned publishing and media group, also operating in Portugal, France and Latin America. With an impressive career, spanning private practice and in-house roles in various industries with international outreach, Luis Elías joined the media group in 2006. Through his position as general counsel he has experienced the multitude of challenges that the digital era and the economic crisis have brought to the publishing industry in Spain. ‘We faced the challenge of studying the new market, deciding what should be our business approach and how it can be sustainable from a legal point of view, while working harder to respond to the new needs’ he comments. Elías created significant changes within the legal department of 28 people to meet these new demands. He led the digitalisation of the department, which has optimised legal procedures, as all data and documents are now available in the intranet. Perhaps most importantly, Elías created the anti-piracy department for the protection of IP rights that helped authors to accept the publication of e-books at the same time their paper-books are circulated, a key reform that revolutionised the sales of digital and print books. Between 2006 and 2015 Grupo Planeta has undertaken more than 60 M&A projects and the advice provided by Elías and his team has been central to the success of these deals. During his time in this role he has directly conducted 37 acquisitions and divestments of businesses, including the acquisition of Editis Group in France for over €2bn and the €500m acquisition of Casa Editorial El Tiempo in Colombia.