Amancio Ortega: Zara’s Founder Is Worth $72 Billion, With $10.2 Billion In Cash

Amancio Ortega, the founder of Spanish fast-fashion brand, Zara, currently has a net worth of $72 billion, posting year to date gains of about $5.5 billion.

The Spanish billionaire owns 59% of Inditex, the world’s biggest clothing retailer. Inditex is the parent company of Zara, Massimo Dutti and other leading retail brands and it operates over 7,400 stores, posting revenue of about $23.5 billion in the year to January 31, 2021.

Amancio Ortega is also known for owning premium office and retail properties worldwide.  The father of three has invested his earnings, primarily dividends into real estate in prime locations such as Barcelona, Madrid, London, Miami, Chicago and New York.

His current net worth can buy 39.6 million troy ounces of gold or 978 million barrels of crude oil.

The European billionaire holds about $10.2 billion in cash and has earned about $10 billion in dividends since his company got publicly listed in 2021.

The 85-year-old billionaire is also known to have a stake of about 5% in Spanish energy company, Enagas, and he also purchased a minority stake in Telefonica SA’s tower unit for $440 million three years ago.

The world’s largest clothing brand is enjoying some form of price stability in equity, posting yearly gains of about 26%. The company rebounded from its first loss on record to post better-than-expected Q1 earnings, as the easing of COVID-19 lockdowns allowed it to reopen most shops.

Though like major clothing brands, the most destructive pandemic of the past year meant that the global clothing company had to face huge uncertainty surrounding inventories which saw its clothing stockpiles in Q1 surge by 5% from a year earlier, though they were down 5% from 2019