Zara Founder Amancio Ortega Ranks as World’s 9th Richest, Expanding Beyond Fashion
Madrid, Spain – Amancio Ortega, the founder of global fashion giant Inditex – parent company to brands including Zara, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, and Lefties – has been named the 9th wealthiest person in the world by Forbes magazine. His fortune is currently estimated at €106.7 billion.
Born in 1936 near the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war,Ortega left school to support his family and entered the fashion industry in 1963 with the opening of GOA,a small shop producing dresses. In 1975, alongside his then-wife, Rosalía Mera, he launched Zara, opening the first store in A Coruña, Spain. This marked a shift from production to retail for the entrepreneur.
The Inditex group was formally created in 1985, and rapidly expanded internationally, debuting in Porto, Portugal in 1988 before reaching New York and Paris in the late 1980s.Throughout the 1990s,Pull & Bear,Massimo Dutti,Bershka,and Stradivarius were integrated into the Inditex portfolio. The company went public and listed on the Spanish stock exchange between 2000 and 2001, together launching the Oysho brand.
Today, Inditex operates over 6,800 stores across 96 countries. the group reported a record net income of €1.305 million and €8.274 billion in sales for the first fiscal quarter of the current year, representing a 1.5% sales increase.
Ortega stepped down as president of Inditex’s Board of Directors in 2011, but retains approximately 60% ownership of the company.
Beyond retail, Ortega’s investment firm, Pontegadea, manages a substantial real estate portfolio valued at approximately €15 billion. Recent acquisitions include a 49% stake in British port operator PD Ports,which manages 11 UK ports including Teesport,and properties leased to major technology companies like Amazon and Facebook. Pontegadea also holds a 12% stake in Portuguese energy company REN, 10% of Spanish telecommunications firm Telxius, and 5% of Spanish gas operator Enagás.
