Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Thursday, Oct 02, 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

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
×