The Kings are planning a trip to Menorca this Thursday, during which they will inaugurate, in Ciutadella, an old pharmacy that they inherited in 2009. In that year the businessman passed away. Juan Ignacio Ballad Llabrés, who decided that half of his inheritance, which amounted to about 10 million euros after paying expenses and debts, would go to the then Princes of Asturias and the eight grandchildren of the now emeritus kings. The remaining half was bequeathed to a foundation that Felipe VI and his wife had to create.
This foundation, which bears the name Hesperia and whose honorary presidents are the monarchs, has been in charge, together with the Menorca Island Council, of rehabilitate the Llabrés Pharmacy, which was also part of the inheritance. The building “is the main reference and one of the few remaining testimonies of modernism in Menorca. The stained glass windows of the old laboratory are the most valuable piece of a set of furniture and decorative elements cataloged for their heritage value”, according to Casa Real in the public agenda of the monarchs, in which no reference is made to inheritance. After its inauguration on Thursday, the building will be used “for the foundation’s own activities and workshops” and “for public visits,” adds Zarzuela. In Menorca, the King and Queen will also visit Isla del Rey, which is located between the port of Mahón and Es Castell, and which has become one of the region’s cultural treasures.
King Felipe assured in 2011 that I did not know Balada and that is why “it was quite a surprise” when informed of the employer’s decision. The Prince of Asturias at the time stated that “the usual thing” would have been to renounce the inheritance, but that he did not do so because the assets had passed “to the public coffers of the State of another country”, since Balada left in writing that, in If he did not accept the royal family, his fortune would be inherited by Israel. “It seemed to us that this was not the most direct or best way to ensure that the Spanish benefited from their heritage,” added the monarch in an act, held in Menorca in 2011, in which he and Doña Letizia delivered 140,000 euros from the inheritance to create jobs for young people, help the disabled and contribute to rare disease research.
The Kings concluded the distribution of the inheritance in 2105. They allocated 368,050 euros for social purposes and paid 682,544 euros in Inheritance Tax in the Balearic Islands for the goods received, according to sources from Zarzuela. The properties that corresponded to Felipe VI and his wife were donated to the Hesperia Foundation, and one of them was sold in 2017 to inject liquidity into the institution. The Balada palace, which belongs to the daughters of the Kings and the rest of the grandchildren of Juan Carlos I, has not yet been sold. The Ciutadella City Council requested Casa Real, in 2021, to transfer the building to it, to which Zarzuela replied in the negative, alleging that as long as all the heirs do not reach the age of majority, the transfer process is complicated since it required consent from their parents and a judicial authorization. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to wait for the grandchildren of the emeritus kings to turn 18 and decide for themselves.
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