WILD GEESE: PETER CLEARY General Manager of Eissound, Spain;SOON AFTER I met Peter Cleary we were plodding up a snow-covered hillside near Soria, north of Madrid, as a small mongrel dog searched for truffles. It wasn't a particularly successful truffle hunt because the ground was too frozen for the poor animal to smell the underground tuber, and then too hard to dig them out.
But a couple of weeks later we were luckier, and Peter cooked a delicious lunch consisting of an enormous plate of truffles with scrambled eggs. I mention truffles first because there were many more of the wonderful black nuggets than eggs in that wonderful dish which I remember to this day.
Although memorable, truffles have not been the only business in Cleary’s life. He has been a chartered accountant and has directed a large food company which included the truffles.
Since 2000 he has been general manager of Eissound, producing sophisticated sound equipment and multi-room sound kits. The business he bought in 2000 now employs 40 people, manufactures parts in China and has an assembly plant near Zaragoza. It recently entered an alliance with Apple to develop a multi-room system to navigate the Ipod menu.
He is also chief shareholder and director of Alimentos Naturales, another food company selling beans, lentils and other pulse foods, either dried or canned, with branches in Morocco and Algeria.
Although he only planned to stay in Spain for about three years, Cleary is still here 36 years later, and has no plans to return to Ireland, although he goes back several times a year.
He is married to his second wife, a US tax lawyer, and is father to six children, all born in Spain. One son, Joe (32), works with him in Eissound, but the others are following their own careers.
Donegal-born Cleary qualified as a chartered accountant in 1972, and starting looking at what path to take and where to look for work.
“Unemployment was very high in Ireland in those days – over 20 per cent – and I couldn’t really see a future there. Many of my friends emigrated to London, to the States and some to Australia. But I wanted to learn a language, so I looked for jobs in Europe.
“When I was offered a job in the Madrid office of Deloitte, the auditors, I jumped at it and stayed for 14 years – the last six as a partner responsible for mergers and acquisitions.”
Cleary says he has been lucky to have had two mentors who have had great influence on his life.
“I think to progress in life you need good mentors. My first was Graham Dodge, the British partner of Deloitte who persuaded me that coming to Spain was a good move.
“He predicted major changes when Franco died, and said the economy would open up. He taught me so much more than merely being an auditor, many things which have been of use to me after I left Deloitte. He showed me how to analyse situations, how to look around a company rather than just at papers, which so many auditors do.”
His second great mentor was Salvador Arotzarena, owner of a small canning factory, who had discovered a method of “inoculating” the roots of oak trees with the spores of the costly melanosporum truffle, sometimes known as Perigord truffles.
“Salvador, who has since died, first approached me in Deloitte because he was looking for a buyer/investor to expand his canning and truffle business. He convinced me to leave the comfort and stability as a partner in Deloitte. He asked me did I want to spend my life sitting on the fence as a consultant or if I wanted to take a chance in helping him sell his company.”
Cleary took that step in 1988. It was a good time because the boom was starting in Spain and a lot of foreign companies wanted to invest. “It was a seller’s market, and there was considerable interest,” he says.
They sold Arotzarena’s business to the sugar company Azucareras Ebro, now Ebro Puleva. Ebro went on to merge with many other businesses in the food sector, including Herba rice, and is now a huge food conglomerate. With Arotzsrena, they bought 750 hectares of hillside near Soria and planted 400,000 oak trees to inoculate with the truffles, many of which were exported to top French restaurants.
Cleary stayed with Ebro for 11 years before leaving to form Eissound, while still keeping a finger in the food business.
He says he has never encountered any resentment as a foreigner working in Spain nor criticism as someone going into a completely new field. “They respect you for what you are and how you go about your business.”
Cleary learned recently that Ebro is considering selling off some parts of the business, including Salvador’s truffle farm near Soria. Would he consider buying it back for himself?
“No. Farming sounds very romantic but it is a risky business. There are so many things, including the weather, against you. I grew up on a farm with three brothers. My mother was obsessed with education and determined we would not have to go back to the farm.”
