Being Luis Valls’ nephew is a privilege, as Luis Pérez-Sala describes. He was a famous professional race car driver in the 1990s, known for being the first Spanish driver to reach Formula 1. He had a long career in motorsport, competing in all categories and winning numerous awards. When he was young, he lost his sponsors and had to stop for a year, moving to Madrid while doing his military service. During that time, this young man from Barcelona had direct contact with his uncles, Luis and Javier.

Luis Pérez-Sala highlights that the help his uncle provided was not necessarily financial. On the contrary, his most common form of assistance was connecting people and institutions to help them reach agreements and solve problems. Luis Pérez-Sala naively thought his uncle would help sponsor his career through the bank, but that didn’t happen. However, his uncle introduced him to people who, with time and effort, enabled him to continue his professional career.

In his testimony, Pérez-Sala explains that what stood out most about his uncle was “his desire to help everyone; it’s what they now call networking.” He shares that family gatherings were when they saw the most relaxed version of the Catalan banker. The driver says that his uncle was someone “who gave everything to society,” even more admirable because he was a banker—far from the stereotype we might have of that kind of businessman. His nephew insists, “Many don’t believe me; they say we’ve made up a story, but I’ve seen it, I lived it—he had nothing, but he gave everything.”

Pérez-Sala emphasizes his uncle’s generosity with a striking statement Luis Valls made before his death: “What I have, you can throw it all away, because what I have is worth nothing.”