Gates, 61, who has pledged to give the majority of his fortune to charity, has donated Microsoft shares worth $35 billion since 1994. He made his largest gift since 2000 in June when he gave Microsoft shares valued at $4.6 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. NEW YORK, United States — Spanish retailer Amancio Ortega is the newest challenger to Bill Gates’ position as the richest person in the world.
Ten years later, in 1985, Ortega incorporated Zara into a holding company called Inditex. He and Mera separated around that time, but she remained the company’s second-largest shareholder. What gave him the edge, and made Zara and its parent company Inditex such a success, was one particular insight. In 1985, around the same time as the first store in Portugal opened, Amancio Ortega incorporated Inditex as a holding company. Zara was founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. The company initially opened its first retail store in 1975 and rapidly expanded its presence across Spain.
- The family struggled to make ends meet, which made a lasting impression on him as a boy.
- Since its launch, Zara Home products expanded to physical stores in more than 60 countries, including the United States, Canada, China, and the United Kingdom.
- Ortega founded fast-fashion giant Zara with his then-wife Rosalia in 1975.
- His fortune has slumped more than a fifth this year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced Inditex to close stores.
A primary-school dropout born to a poor family, Ortega was a complete mystery before a photo of him was released publicly for the first time in 1999 in advance of Inditex’s initial public offering. Fiercely private and press averse, Ortega reportedly paid off a paparazzi in 2012 to prevent photos of his daughter Marta on her honeymoon from being released, according to Wealth-X. The move brings the chain back under the family’s control, after a decade of being run by outsiders. Founder Amancio Ortega, 85, relinquished day-to-day management duties when he stepped down as chair in 2011. However, he remains the company’s controlling shareholder, with a 60% stake in the company, making him one of the wealthiest people on the planet with a fortune of $73 billion.
In 2015 alone, Inditex’s stock rose 34%, and through the first nine months of the year sales were up 16% and profits increased 20%. Business Insider just released its list of the 50 richest people on earth, and, unsurprisingly, the top spot went to household name Bill Gates. But the second-richest person in the world is a secretive, little-known fashion retailing titan from Spain.
Ortega, Spain’s richest man, has diversified his fashion fortune to preserve his sizable wealth, investing more than $3 billion in U.S. real estate in recent years. The entrepreneurs whose businesses can be classified as essential during lockdowns increased their net worth despite the uncertainties. Business owners need to adapt quickly to the changing times and put more focus on online https://1investing.in/ retail as consumers prefer not leaving the house during the pandemic. Despite the setback, Ortega remains one of the wealthiest in the world. Aside from Ortega, only LVMH’s Bernard Arnault & family is included on the richest list from the fashion and retail industry. The self-made fashion magnate is one of eight European billionaires that rank among the 50 richest people on earth.
What does Inditex own?
Ortega owns about 59 percent of the company, which has a $103 billion market cap. Today, the company includes brands like Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius. A spokesperson for Mr Ortega says the scale of his success has rather taken the company’s founder by surprise.
By the time a product arrived, fashion-conscious shoppers wanted something different. The son of a railway worker, he was born in 1936, just before the outbreak of Spain’s civil war. The family struggled to make ends meet, which made a lasting impression on him as a boy. Yet compared to the world’s other richest people, he has chosen to keep a low profile, avoiding interviews and media appearances whenever possible. Even this week, when the company’s rising share price made him the richest man in the world for two days, he wasn’t ready to retire. It later expanded into international markets, with the first Zara store outside of Spain opening in Portugal in 1985.
Market Realist specializes in must-know news highlights, in-depth analysis, and overviews of companies as well as industries. But others will see this more as a Spanish version of the hit HBO series “Succession”, where family members are given preference for top jobs over better qualified members of the team. Inditex, whose brands also include Pull&Bear and Stradivariusm, has come to dominate High Streets around the world, with more than 6,600 shops globally. Inditex was founded by Amancio Ortega with his ex-wife Rosalia in 1975 in Galicia, Spain. Ms Ortega has been with the firm for 15 years, starting out as an assistant at its High Street brand Bershka. Ashley Lutz and Mallory Schlossberg contributed to an earlier version of this story.
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It’s main face is Zara but it also features other fashion brands such as Pull&Bear, Bershka, Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius. You might not immediately recognize Ortega’s name, but chances are you’ve visited one of his stores. Once a tiny dress shop in Spain, Inditex is now one of the largest fashion empires worldwide, with more than 6,900 stores globally. The retailer’s portfolio of brands includes Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, and most notably, fast-fashion giant Zara. As per Insider, most of his cash is reinvested in real estate through the company’s investment department. In 2011, he bought the tallest skyscraper in Spain, the 515-foot Torre Picasso in Madrid for an astounding $536 million.
Amancio Ortega’s Personal life
According to Bloomberg, since the parent company’s IPO in 2001, Ortega has received more than 9 billion euros or more than $10 billion in dividends. Ortega started the business in 1975 with then-wife Mera, who stitched some of their first pieces of clothing by hand at home. Ortega went on to become a pioneer in the fast fashion industry, strategically keeping inventory levels down and prices low by spinning out styles much faster than competitors.
Ortega founded fast-fashion giant Zara with his then-wife Rosalia in 1975. Today, his retail company Inditex SA which owns eight brands including Zara, Massimo Dutti, and Pull&Bear has more than 7,500 stores around the world. He was the richest person in the world overtaking Bill Gates in 2015 when the Inditex stock peaked. He belongs to one of the wealthiest families in all of Europe and all the members in the family are successful in their fields. Amancio Ortega Gaona is a Spanish fashion entrepreneur and founder of Zara’s parent company Inditex.
Mera and Ortega’s daughter, Sandra Ortega Mera, inherited the title of Spain’s richest woman after her mother’s death.
Before they married in 2001, Amancio and Flora had Marta Ortega – who is likely to take over her father’s company when he retires. The youngest of four children, he grew up in Leon, Spain but was forced to move at the age of 14 because his dad was a railway worker. owner of zara net worth From humble beginnings in Spain, the 81-year-old founded a multi-billion pound empire. Ortega reportedly frequents the same coffee shop every day and eats lunch in his company’s cafeteria. At one point, Ortega owned the Pazo de Dodro farm and estate near La Coruña.
In a formula that would become central to his later success, Ortega reproduced popular, in-demand fashion items with less expensive materials to sell at lower prices. The essential daily round-up of fashion news, analysis, and breaking news alerts. Imran Amed reviews the most important fashion stories of the year and shares his predictions on what this means for the industry in 2024.
He also owns the skyscraper, Cepsa Tower, in Madrid that he bought for $551 million. He owns the Epic Residences, a high-end Bayfront iconic condo, and a 45-story luxury apartment building in Miami. In 2015, he decided to pay $370 million for an entire block of prime property in Miami Beach. He also has an office block in London’s affluent Mayfair neighborhood that borders Hyde Park. He launched his brand Zara with his first wife in 1972 and by the year 2000, the company went public and Zara became part of the Inditex group.
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He has been living his life peacefully as one of the richest people on the planet. While he is not the richest person in the world, he is one of the richest individuals alive with a net worth of $70 billion. Ortega, 84, the founder and owner of fashion label Zara, invested 2.1 billion euros in real estate last year through various subsidiaries of his holding company Pontegadea, according to an emailed statement. Pontegadea, which owns 59.3% of Zara parent Inditex SA, had a net income of 1.8 billion euros for 2019, including 1.64 billion euros in Inditex dividends and 621 million euros from real estate assets. Amancio Ortega owns around 59% of Inditex, which is the world’s largest clothing retailer. Apart from Zara, he owns other companies such as Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, and more.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc heiress Christy Walton was the highest-ranking woman, in ninth place, at $36.7 billion. France’s Liliane Bettencourt, who got much of her wealth from cosmetics company L’Oreal SA, was next among women at $34.5 billion, and ranked 11th overall. Ortega founded the Amancio Ortega Foundation in 2001, a charitable organisation focused on education and social welfare. In 2017, it donated US$344 million to Spanish public hospitals to provide the latest technology in breast cancer screening and treatment. He and his wife live in La Coruña, Spain, near a major port of the Atlantic Ocean. In November 2018, Marta married Carlos Torretta – then a modelling agent and son of designer Roberto Torretta – at her family’s home in Galicia, Spain.
“The current chief executive Carlos Crespo has moved over to become chief operating officer, so it’s not like he’s leaving the company. And they say Oscar Maceiras is good at team building.” Through the Pontegadea company, he brings together all his assets based on real estate investment and financial investments. Internationally, he also owns properties in five other major European capitals (Paris, Berlin, Rome, Lisbon and London). The son of a railroad worker, Ortega has a net worth of $58.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the bulk of which comes from his majority stake in Inditex. His fortune has slumped more than a fifth this year in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced Inditex to close stores. Ortega’s net worth has steadily increased since founding Inditex in 1963, but its recent growth spurt caused his wealth to balloon.