Pedro Pascual Gandarias

Pedro Pascual de Gandarias Navea (22 October 1843 – 14 February 1901) was a Spanish industrialist and entrepreneur. He was one of the most important figures in the industrial development of Biscay and the Basque Country, being noted for his prominent role in promoting the industrialization of those regions in the 19th century.

He became related by marriage to the Durañona family, an important owner and operator of iron mines, creating the Durañona y Gandarias company, the embryo of a great industrial and mining emporium that was increased by his son Juan Tomás Gandarias.

Early and personal life Pedro Pascual Gandarias was born in the small Biscayan town of Arratzu, neighboring Gernika-Lumo, in the Basque Country on 22 October 1843, as the sixth child of Juan Tomás de Gandarias Zabala (1808–) and Maria Josefa Navea Altamira, both from Arratzu. His father had a foundry called Huarca in Arratzu and did business with Juan Durañona Arrarte, an important owner and operator of iron mines in the Left Bank area of the Nervión estuary, who supplied the iron to his father's foundry. Gandarias named his first-born after his father, Juan Tomás, and likewise, his son did the exact same thing with his own first-born, which he named after Pedro Pascual, who had died just two days before his birth. Twenty years later, in 1902, his son Juan Tomás, on behalf of his recently deceased father and the SA de Metalurgia y Construcciones Vizcaya, participated in the negotiations for the merger between Altos Hornos de Bilbao and Iberia. This company, together to Altos Hornos de Bilbao and La Iberia, would be the germ of the future Altos Hornos de Vizcaya. In this propitiatory framework, Gandarias, always attentive to the opportunities offered by the market and who had a great sensitivity to accumulation, maximization of profits, reinvestment and profit, landed in the region of the Guerniquesado with the acquisition of a large number of hamlets, mountains and various estates when purchasing from the properties that Eugénie de Montijo put up for sale.