Amancio Ortega has been the greatest fortune in Spain. However, the founder of Inditex is getting closer to regaining the throne as the richest European according to the list of Forbes.
In recent years, the Leonese magnate’s assets have grown thanks to the good stock market performance of Inditex but, above all, due to the profitable real estate investments of his second billion-dollar empire: Pontegadea.
Race for the European throne. According to Forbes data, Bernard Arnault is currently the richest person in Europe and ranks seventh in the world. global ranking with an approximate fortune of $158.3 billion thanks to LVMH, the luxury fashion and beverage empire he founded.
For his part, Amancio Ortega occupies tenth place on the Forbes list with a net worth of $148.9 billion, which leaves a difference of about $9.4 billion between both magnates.
An increasingly smaller difference. $9.4 billion may seem like an insurmountable difference to anyone, but in reality a bad afternoon in the stock market can make the surprise possible. Ortega controls almost 60% of Inditex, which multiplies the impact of its rises in the stock market.
In 2024, the gap between both millionaires was enormous. Bernard Arnault came from being the richest person in the worldand between both millionaires there was a difference of 130,000 million dollars in favor of the French magnate. However, Inditex’s growth and good stock market results contrasted with LVMH’s successive declines in sales in Asia.
Weakness in luxury compared to the solidity of Inditex. Precisely those opposite trends of LVMH and Inditex are what increase Ortega’s chances of becoming the biggest fortune in Europe.
LVMH registered a decrease 13.3% in its profits and 5% in turnover in its latest annual results, which caused a drop of more than 8% in the stock market in the first session and 19.4% in the last month. This instability in luxurywith brands such as Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon or Tiffany & Co., has weakened the equity of the company’s shareholders. Louis Vuitton matrix.
On the other hand, Inditex charted an upward trajectory, reaching 58 euros per share last week, its all-time high, registering a capitalization of 177.8 billion euros. This divergence in the stock market explains why Ortega’s fortune is only one step from Arnault’s.
Pontegadea: the key to growth. Beyond the fluctuations in Inditex’s prices, Pontegadea, Amancio Ortega’s investment holding company, is positioned as the most solid pillar of the Spanish tycoon’s assets.
Your real estate investments, energy networks and logistics are not subject to fluctuations in the stock market, which is why they contribute to making Ortega’s fortune much more stable than that of the French millionaire. Recently, Pontegadea bought the Australian group Qube for 6,895 million euros together with Macquarie, adding more than 9,000 million in logistics investments from 2022. These operations in ports as PD Ports and assets in Vancouver or Miami diversify the portfolio of Ortega’s investment arm with stable incomes in consolidated sectors or growing.
In Xataka | How much money Amancio Ortega has: how the fortune of the richest man in Spain is distributed
Image | GTRES, Flickr (Trump White House Archived)
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