Amancio Ortega is once again among the ten greatest fortunes on the planet according to Forbes monitor in real time thanks to the rise in the stock market of Inditex and the solidity of its real estate holding Pontegadea, which have catapulted the fortune of the Spanish millionaire up to 143.5 billion dollars.
This renewed stock market push has allowed him to re-enter the ‘Top 10’ of greatest fortunes on the planet, and even compete for ninth position with veteran investor Warren Buffett although, as how I collected Digital Economyonly occasionally.
From the 2025 bump to the return to the ‘top 10’. In June 2025, the combination of Inditex’s weaker stock market performance and global market volatility ended removing Amancio Ortega from the exclusive group of the ten largest fortunes in the world by Forbes, falling below fourteenth place.
The textile giant’s stock went on to chain several months of declines after quarterly results that grew, but not at the pace that the market expected, and that sharply cut the valuation of its assets, closely linked to the evolution of the company that it founded and of which it still retains 59.294%.
The Inditex rally. However, as of December the situation took a 180 degree turn after the presentation of Inditex’s third quarter results and investors once again showed their confidence in the textile multinational.
To put this boom in context, at the beginning of December, each share of Zara’s parent company was trading at just over 49 euros, and its capitalization was around 152,934 million euros. However, weeks later, the title is already trading at just over 56 euros and Inditex’s stock market value exceeded 172.2 billion euros.
…And the solidity of Pontegadea. In parallel, Pontegadea, which channel and invest most of his participation in Inditex and the dividends generated by the textile empire he founded, acted as an amplifier of his wealth by closing some of the largest real estate transactions in its history.
Pontegadea closed the year with a portfolio that has not stopped adding assets in offices, logistics and luxury residential in large international capitals, which has only increased the strength of your assets.
The temporary “surprise” of Warren Buffett. The meteoric rise of Ortega, who has risen several positions at once, has reached its peak when the Forbes real-time index placed him in ninth position on the global list of fortunes, just ahead of the investor Warren Buffett retired.
That day, the founder of Inditex closed the session with a fortune valued at 146.9 billion dollars, slightly above that of the Omaha investor, whose fortune was weighed down by a fall in the stock market, resulting in a cut of about 654 million euros. However, the stock market is what everyone else plays. While Buffett wins, so the veteran investor recovered his position the next day.
Ortega, Ballmer and the new order among the ultra-rich. Ortega remains in tenth place, with a fortune estimated at 143.5 billion dollars. That level places him just ahead of Steve Ballmer, whose wealth linked to Microsoft The Los Angeles Clippers are now worth over $140 billion.
The geographical distribution of the ‘top 10’ leave a photograph in which Ortega is once again the only great Spanish fortune in a select club dominated by American technology giants and the European figure of Bernard Arnaultat the head of the luxury conglomerate LVMH.
In Xataka | Amancio Ortega: the billionaire who lives like another neighbor. Except for private jets and superyachts
Image | GTRES, Flickr (Fortune Live Media)
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