On a Saturday in February 2013, days after the official opening of a large Mango store on Barcelona’s exclusive Passeig de Gràcia, the company’s founder surprised the sales assistants. Isak Andic, who had built this fashion giant from scratch in 1989, wanted to see with his own eyes how the store operated on its first weekend, and he came with his entire family. Next to the cash registers, he saw a bucket collecting water. Leaks. The workers and all the Andics looked up at the ceiling. The father gave some orders, and soon the problem was solved.
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The anecdote, recounted at the time in the media outlet Modaes, summarizes the extent to which Mango’s founder was aware of the details of his company, which he had founded by selling shirts he bought in Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar, his hometown, around Barcelona. His entrepreneurial spirit permeated all of Mango’s operations, close sources recall: in a very personal style, he combined creative vision and day-to-day management, and many suppliers wanted to deal directly with him. That’s why it’s hard to imagine the extent to which, around 2014, the founder made the decision they say he made: to retire to rest and leave everything in the hands of his firstborn, Jonathan.
On May 19, Jonathan Andic was arrested by the Mossos for the alleged homicide of his father, who died in December 2024, at the age of 71, during an excursion to Montserrat where they were alone. The judge who ordered the firstborn’s imprisonment (on bail) cites as one of the indications the “bad relationship” between father and son due to financial reasons. But different sources explain that this conflict dates back earlier, to the time when, after leaving his son in charge of the company, Isak Andic returned to take the reins again and prevent collapse.
There is some ambiguity about Jonathan’s real decision-making capacity in those years and about the roles they both played. Mango’s annual reports between 2012 and 2020, consulted by this newspaper, clarify only two aspects: Isak Andic, the company’s sole shareholder, never ceased to be Mango’s executive chairman, while Jonathan Andic was executive vice president during that period, but never CEO.
Jonathan’s ascent
Jonathan, the first of the three children Isak Andic had with Neus Raig, had joined Mango in 2005, after an education in the best centers: Swiss boarding schools, Audiovisual Communication in the United States, and a master’s degree for executives at IESE Business School. In 2007, he went on to direct the company’s then-new men’s line.
On paper, it was in 2012 when he made the leap. That year, the firstborn was appointed executive vice president, a position he shared with Daniel López, while Enric Casi was general manager. This organizational chart with two vice presidencies was maintained until 2020.
But the father’s trust, the consulted sources explain, was intermittent. This led to some confusion in the roles with which the father defined the son: it was speculated that he had been appointed deputy chairman, and then, in 2014, Isak Andic explained at an event to journalists at IESE that his son had already been “acting as such” as CEO for two years, although he never held that position. “The handover is like a drop of my own water,” he said then.
Sources close to the organization at the time explain that, beyond nominal positions, the year in which Jonathan exercised more independent management from his father was 2014. The same sources detail that he wanted to put people he trusted on the team and imprint a certain personal character on decisions. It didn’t last long, and the following year something went wrong. The father, who had not left the executive presidency, took the reins again, the position of general manager became vacant, he hired Toni Ruiz as financial director, and he again trusted people who had left during Jonathan’s time.
The company also implemented a series of control mechanisms, such as a management committee and then an advisory board, to facilitate communication, include independent members, and lay the groundwork for eventually creating Mango’s current Board of Directors which, now converted into a public limited company, has six independent members of recognized prestige. In 2015, after the experience, “many steps began to be taken to professionalize Mango and create the great company it is now,” says someone close to this process. That year Jonathan remained in his executive vice presidency, more focused on the Mango Man part. From 2021 onwards, he was listed only as director of the men’s line.
The economic impact
These years in which Jonathan held an executive position coincide with a financially complicated period for the company. And several consulted sources explain that it cannot be attributed exclusively to the son’s management. “Jonathan shouldn’t have been bad, but he wasn’t the visionary his father was. He was handed the hot potato of having to transform the company at a time of many challenges,” another source highlights.
“At that time there was what has come to be known as the retail apocalypse. The entire retail sector changed,” he says. Although these were years of economic recovery and consumption was picking up, there were other factors: distribution costs began to rise, online commerce gained prominence; and cheaper competitors appeared. “There were many companies, with 40 or 50 stores, like Coronel Tapioca or True, that practically disappeared. Mango was neither too small nor too big, but it didn’t have enough scale to face all this without suffering,” he points out.
Added to all this is Mango’s particular situation. The company, under the founder’s vision and before Jonathan’s arrival at the vice presidency, had undertaken a diversification process with different lines (men’s in 2008, children’s in 2013, Violeta by Mango in 2014, and then a sports line), which took years to consolidate. The company also began to bet on opening very large stores to match its competitors, but this required a lot of investment, and sales per square meter decreased. There were distribution problems, because Mango needed greater agility and more in-store offerings, and opted for closer suppliers, such as Turkey or Morocco, which had higher prices.
As a consequence, the margin was reduced, while stores, now with more stock, reduced prices. Finally, between 2012 and 2015, Mango made significant investments: 1.2 billion euros in opening and expanding stores, 250 million in the construction of a logistics center in Lliçà d’Amunt to solve the distribution problem, and the construction of what is now known as Campus Mango. An attempt was also made to enter the United States —Isak Andic’s great dream—, with an alliance with JC Penney that they ended up dissolving because the numbers didn’t add up.
The recovery
The result of all these combined factors was a stagnation in sales, a sharp drop in gross operating profit (it went from 229.9 million in 2013 to 77.3 million in 2016) and an increase in debt (reaching 617.6 million in 2016). Net profit continued to fall, registering losses for three consecutive years (61 million in 2016, 33.2 million the following year, and 35.7 million in 2018).
The paradox is that a good part of these decisions, such as the logistics center or diversification, were positive in the long term, and allowed Mango to recover, already under the leadership of Toni Ruiz, who had been promoted to general manager in 2018. “Recoveries are slow, and Mango took almost four years,” close sources point out. The company managed to reposition the product, gain profitability in stores, boost online growth, and restructure financial debt. Now, with revenues of 3.8 billion euros in 2025, a net profit of 242 million, and very little debt, the company is experiencing what Ruiz —who assumed the presidency after the founder’s death, who as a sign of his trust had given him a 5% stake in Mango’s capital in 2023— considers “the best moment in history” economically.
The recovery and team restructuring after the crisis years proved so solid that in 2020, when he appointed Ruiz CEO, Andic finally did take the step to become non-executive chairman. Retirement finally arrived. And so did the dreams: in 2022, after trying to enter the United States again, Andic was finally able to open a store on New York’s Fifth Avenue. “It’s my dream. We have the best team in history,” he said then. There were no leaks in that store.
