How did the son of a railroad worker in Fascist Spain hit the big time? Ortega began his professional life at 14 as a delivery boy with a shirt-maker in Coruna, a blustery city in Northern Spain. Within a few years he had set up a workshop making nightgowns, lingerie and babywear.
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Ortega reportedly frequents the same coffee shop every day and eats lunch in his company’s cafeteria. Inditex is notoriously guarded and private, a legacy of its founder, Amancio Ortega, who was born in 1936 in northern Spain into humble origins and is today the third richest man in the world. A digital mirror that allows you to try on clothes without actually taking them off the shelf sits on one side of the room, next to it is a self-service till where shoppers can pay for their clothing and remove the security tag without a shop assistant. For a few hours on Friday, Amancio Ortega Gaona was the world’s richest man. A surge in Microsoft’s share price and currency fluctuations meant that by close of play that day, Ortega, estimated to be worth around €66 billion, had slipped to second place.
- Early on he insisted the system be nimble enough to be able to restock any store within 48 hours and turn designs into clothing within 10 days.
- Zara’s mysterious founder, Amancio Ortega, is now the world’s second-richest man — surpassing even Warren Buffet.
- He started making clothes with his siblings and future wife, Rosalia Mera, in their home in the early 1960s.
- This flexibility and efficiency has remained at the heart of Inditex, the company built from Zara that now runs 6,500 shops in 88 different countries and includes seven other brands, including Bershka, Pull & Bear, and Massimo Dutti.
- While some of its manufacturing is in China and Morocco, most is in Spain and “proximity” countries, making it easier to control quality and, when necessary, increase production overnight.What really lifts it above the competition is its faultless eye.
Its state-of-the-art manufacturing chain means it can midwife a product from drawing board to shop floor in three weeks. While some of its manufacturing is in China and Morocco, most is in Spain and “proximity” countries, making it easier to control quality and, when necessary, increase production overnight.What really lifts it above the competition is its faultless eye. The Spanish apparel mogul pioneered the ‘fast fashion’ business model at vertically-integrated goliath Zara. In August 2013, Ortega’s ex-wife, who had become Spain’s richest woman, died at age 69.
In August 2013, his ex-wife and Zara cofounder, Rosalia Mera, died at age 69. She was Spain’s richest woman.
Ortega picked up another New York property in 2016, this time a hotel at 70 Park Avenue in Murray Hill for $67.6 million, according to The Real Deal. The office building was the tallest in Spain at the time, but it’s now the tenth-tallest building in the country. When Inditex went public in 2001, Ortega established a family office, Pontegadea Inversiones, as the vehicle through which the Ortega family operates as majority shareholders of Inditex. The family office, in turn, channels most investments through Ortega’s real estate investment arm, Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, one of the biggest property companies in Spain.
Inditex has grown into a fast-fashion behemoth.
At a time when consumers are becoming more aware of the environmental costs of fast fashion, Zara particularly is in an awkward spot – its reputation is built on bringing style trends to High Street stores quickly and cheaply. That was an integral part of Zara’s quick turnaround business model, which Ortega instituted from the beginning. Early on he insisted the system be nimble enough to be able to restock any store within 48 hours and turn designs into clothing within 10 days. At the same time, the commercial team is a liaising with the in-house designers, who they sit next to in the offices at Inditex HQ. When sales trends are identified – either from evidence in stores or the catwalk – the commercial team will work with the designers to develop new products to meet the trends.
“One day he and his mother went to pick up some groceries,” according to Covadonga owner of zara brand O’Shea, author of a biography of the Zara founder. Yet compared to the world’s other richest people, he has chosen to keep a low profile, avoiding interviews and media appearances whenever possible. In October 2015, he was the world’s wealthiest man for a few hours.
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 was founded by Amancio Ortega with his ex-wife Rosalia in 1975 in Galicia, Spain. “I have always said I would dedicate my life to building upon my parents’ legacy,” the 37-year-old said. To improve their lives, garment workers simply need to earn more. But this won’t happen until fashion businesses treat them as their own employees, argues Edward Hertzman. Jeff Bezos sold about $1 billion in company stock as part of a planned divestiture, a month after he said he spends about that amount annually on his space exploration company Blue Origin.
Ortega owns 59.3 per cent of the business, which is valued at €110 billion, and is not only bigger than H&M and Gap, but worth more than Santander and Telefonica – Spain’s two largest other commercial empires. Consider the below the CV Ortega would (perhaps) write, were he publicity minded. Ortega, the 86-year-old founder of the Zara fashion brand and the multinational clothing group Inditex, has built a business which has dominated high street fashion for decades. He remains the driving force of his empire, and with a fortune estimated to be in the region of $72.8bn — making him the wealthiest individual in Europe. Ortega Gaona first ventured into retail in his early teens, working as store assistant at Gala, a local shirtmaker and tailor located in his town of A Coruña.
Their daughter has an estimated $9.7 billion net worth and controls 4.5% of Inditex, though she’s not involved in the company. She’s the second-richest person in Spain behind her father, according to Forbes. His retail empire Inditex helped Ortega build his $108 billion fortune, and he also invests his earnings into an expansive commercial real estate portfolio that includes office and residential buildings around the world. Highlights included the 1999 acquisition of Stradivarius (a youth fashion chain), the 2001 launch of Oysho (lingerie), and the 2003 launch of Zara Home (home furnishings)—the company’s first business line outside of the apparel industry.
