Amancio Ortega has become the greatest real estate magnate of the planet and, in the process, it has turned Pontegadea into the largest real estate agency in Europe. Ortega’s asset portfolio is made up of stores located on the best streets in the world, buildings of apartments for millionaireslarge offices in strategic locations and even hotels. However, in recent months Pontegadea has taken a liking to a much more profitable sector: that of specialized logistics centers.
The investment arm of Amancio Ortega has paid 187 million Canadian dollars (about 115 million euros) for the largest refrigerated warehouse in Lactalisa French giant of the dairy industry worldwide. It is in Oshawa, Ontario, less than an hour’s drive from Toronto and stores the milk that supplies half of Canada.
A warehouse designed to be the largest in the world. Broccolinithe Canadian firm in charge of building the logistics complex, designed it from scratch for Lactalis. The result It is 35,000 square meters with capacity for 60,000 cold pallets, eighty employees and a long-term lease that keeps the dairy giant Lactalis as a tenant of the complex that it has just sold.
The center was conceived to unify the different distribution platforms that Lactalis had spread across Ontario. Its location gave it direct access to the country’s main highways, making it an efficient exit point to the rest of the territory, making the logistics center the ideal hub to centralize its entire cheese and dairy network in Canada.
Lactalis: the dairy giant that few know. Headquartered in Laval, France, Lactalis is the largest dairy company of the planet. In 2024, it will exceed €30 billion in turnover for the first time, with 266 plants in 51 countries and 85,500 employees. In Canada it operates with some of the best-selling brands and has more than 4,000 workers in 30 facilities.
The agreement reached with Pontegadea follows the usual lines dictated by Amancio Ortega: Pontegadea purchases the building and Lactalis continues to operate normally under a long-term rental regime. That is, only the owner of the infrastructure changes, but not the activity of the plant. It is the same agreement that Amazon accepted at its Seattle headquarters, Primark in the middle of Gran Vía Madrid or with the group’s brands PVH in the Netherlands.
Pontegadea has taken Canada’s point. Ortega has been accumulating assets in Canada for years. In 2022 he bought the Royal Bank Plaza of Toronto, two towers in the financial center, for about 800 million Canadian dollars. In 2024 it acquired an Amazon warehouse in Burnaby, near Vancouver, for around 260 million euros. Last year The Post closedthe former Vancouver post office, for around 700 million euros.
Judging by the number of operations that Ortega has closed in that country, everything indicates that the Canadian market is very attractive for Pontegadea. That has reinforced its presence in the country with each new “branch of investment” that it has started: it has offices, Premium commercial premises and, now, also logistics centers specialized in the dairy industry.
The cold chain, the new objective. Pontegadea has been expanding its logistics portfolio for years beyond offices and commercial premises. The jump to food cold chain logistics is the most recent step, although not the first in this sense. Pontegadea already has a cold warehouse in Miami.
This new movement represents an evolution with respect to the model of general logistics platforms that the real estate company had been applying. in Netherlandswhere he recently acquired a new logistics center of 94,000 m2 for 132 million euros. A refrigerated warehouse of this size is not easily improvised or moved, and that makes it especially valuable for those looking to secure rent collection for a long time.
Image | Broccolini
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