The billionaire brothers David and Simon Reuben are bidding for Santander’s €3bn (£2.6bn) headquarters in Madrid, which is being sold following years of legal wrangling between property speculators.
The Reubens, who were ranked fourth in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of £15bn, are competing against the bank itself, which wants to buy back the costly lease, and the private equity firm AGC Equity Partners.
Santander’s headquarters, a sprawling campus with a championship golf course and an olive grove, was sold for €1.9bn the day after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 to Glenn Maud, a former lawyer from Sheffield, and Derek Quinlan, a former tax inspector from Dublin.
