London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Sep 30, 2025

Secrets to billionaire Zara founder’s US$11 billion property empire … steer clear of housing real estate

Amancio Ortega currently owns property in nine countries: Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, South Korea, Spain and the United States. His portfolio is mostly made up of offices and shops, as well as some hotels

Spanish billionaire Amancio Ortega, the founder of clothing giant Zara, has built up a global real estate empire that includes offices used by Facebook and Amazon in Seattle and large swathes of London’s Oxford Street.

Diversifying his fashion fortune to preserve his sizeable wealth, the value of the real estate portfolio owned by Ortega’s investment holding Pontegadea Inversiones stood at around €10 billion euros ($11 billion) at the end of last year.

Pontegadea collects almost all of the dividends which Ortega earns – €1.6 billion in 2019 – and then reinvests the money in real estate, a spokesman for the holding firm said.

The 83-year-old stepped down as chairman of Inditex, the owner of Zara, in 2011 but he still owns 59 per cent of the world’s biggest fashion retailer, which also owns other popular fashion brands like Massimo Dutti and Bershka.

He is currently the world’s sixth richest person, according to Forbes.

His latest major real estate purchases came earlier this month when Pontegadea bought an office building used by Facebook in Seattle for US$415 million as well as the “Troy Block” complex in the same city which houses part of Amazon’s headquarters for US$740 million.

It is “normal” for entrepreneurs with a lot of capital to set up an investment fund to manage the cash to “diversify and preserve” the fortune by building a “refuge” from stock market fluctuations, Juan Carlos Amaro, a professor of finance at the Esade business school in Barcelona, said.

Ortega, who founded fast-fashion giant Zara with his ex-wife Rosalia in 1975 in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia, fiercely guards his privacy and is known for being a prudent investor.

Analysts said he was targeting real estate as a long term investment, not to speculate.

“It is a very conservative activity which was chosen, not for its great profitability but because it is sufficiently stable,” a Pontegadea spokesman said.

Ortega steers clear of housing real estate, which is potentially more profitable but has a bad reputation after a property bubble burst in the late 2000s, triggering a prolonged recession.

His portfolio is mostly made up of offices and shops, as well as some hotels.

In addition to owning several buildings in Madrid and Barcelona, Ortega has become the main real estate proprietor of London’s Oxford Street, Europe’s busiest shopping street.

In Paris he owns the building that houses Apple’s flagship store as well as a commercial building on the Champs-Elysee avenue.

Ortega only buys property “in the capitals of major countries that are stable”, preferably in prestigious neighbourhoods, the Pontagadea spokesman said.

He also favours “top category tenants with good solvability”, with a preference for major multinationals, said Rafael Sambola, a professor Barcelona’s Eada business school who has authored several books on finance and accounting.

Ortega has found it easy to meet his criteria in the United States: in recent years he has snapped up properties in Miami, San Francisco, New York and Washington in addition to Seattle.

“I think he wants to have a diversification of exchange rates” to protect himself for possible setbacks with the euro or the pound, said Manuel Romera, the director of the finance department at Madrid’s IE business school.

Ortega currently owns property in nine countries: Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, South Korea, Spain and the United States.

The rent he collects from these buildings – €405 million (US$447,577) in 2018 – are immediately reinvested in Pontegadea, according to the holding.

The Zara owner is not afraid to rent buildings to rival clothing such as Primark, which occupies one of his properties on Madrid’s high street.

Last year Pontegedea made a rare venture outside real estate, snapping up 10 per cent of Telxius, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica’s subsidiary which provides telephone towers and fibre networks in Europe and Latin America.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
Explosive Email Shows Sarah Ferguson Begged Forgiveness from Jeffrey Epstein After Taking His Money
×