“Large investment funds have shown interest in Ibiza’s large discotheques“, says José Luis Benítez, manager of the association Ocio de Ibiza. There are several business owners who have received firm offers or who have been approached to see if they could take advantage of the economic and health situation to take over one of the temples of music on the island.
“They have been interested, but no one is going to sell”, insists the manager of the group. He is convinced of this. In his opinion, for that to happen, these investment funds would need to present “very good offers”. “A barbaric amount”, acknowledges the manager about these movements in which, in times of crisis, these investment funds try to take advantage of the situation to take over large companies at much lower prices than they would have cost at another time with the intention of, once the bad times have passed, starting them up again and recovering the investment.
The island’s discotheques, although closed due to the pandemic for the last two summers, are in a very different situation to that of the legendary Drhaa in Mallorca, recently acquired by a German businessman. In the case of the one in Mallorca, the site had been in disuse for two decades and the owners’ children had no intention of recovering it, as they explained.
This has nothing to do with the reality of the large discotheques which, for years, have been one of the island’s major tourist attractions. “Ibiza has a lot of pull,” says the association’s manager. “Although we Ibizans are not very aware of it, the name of Ibiza is known all over the world, and this type of company knows this very well,” continues José Luis Benítez.