He is one of the richest men in the world, in a few decades he has raised the largest textile empire, he is a real estate investor, the home of giants like Amazon or Apple, and he is also in the capital of several infrastructure companies. Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, has bought 5% of the capital of the energy company Enagás and has become the majority shareholder together with the State Society of Industrial Participations (Sepi), according to the energy company announced yesterday.

He has paid 281.63 million euros and the purchase has been made through the company Partler 2006, which belongs to Pontegadea, the group that manages its real estate business and also the dividends that come from 60% of Inditex shares that are held by Ortega.

The operation has occurred within the process of capital increase initiated by Enagás and it is an investment that, sources close to the operation explain, "has a lot to do with those made outside of Inditex," the group that owns brands like Zara, Stradivarius, Berskha or Massimo Dutti.

In July 2018, Ortega bought 10% of the capital of Telxius, a telecommunications infrastructure subsidiary of Telefónica, for 379 million euros. In 2016 Telefónica tried unsuccessfully to go public. Last summer, Ortega already charged a dividend for his shares in the company.

They are, explain these sources, "similar investments", which are in the same line, because Ortega enters physical infrastructure companies (real estate, antennas and cables, in the case of Telxius, or gasification pipes, in the case of Enagás) , whose users or customers are other companies.

The brick king

But the heart of Pontegadea's business is textile and brick. The group (which is divided into two branches: Pontegadea Inmobiliaria and Pontegadea Inversiones) is the one that manages 60% of the capital of Inditex that belongs to the entrepreneur. He is the majority shareholder of the textile empire and will receive a dividend of 1,626 million euros this year. This is "for value and for the meaning it has", Ortega's main investment.

Part of the dividends that it receives go to the real estate business (Pontegadea Real Estate), which in turn has several subsidiaries in the markets where they have real estate (nine). The strategy focuses on buying buildings, premises or spaces in premium locations and then renting them.

Most of the surfaces are offices, there is a small part in the hotel activity and another in the commercial sector. Inditex is the tenant of some of these properties but they are mainly the fashion chains of the competition the tenants of the spaces.

In 2018, Ortega's Real Estate assets were valued at 10,000 million euros, although the price of this portfolio is already close to 11,000 million euros, after purchases made in recent months. Among the most important are the acquisition last March of the Amazon headquarters in Seattle for 655 million euros.

Ortega is also the owner of Apple, with several stores, or Primark, among others. Most of its real estate assets are in Spain, although it also has locations, in addition to the US, in the main European capitals.

Divestments

The entrepreneur became a shareholder of companies such as Banco Popular, NH or Aguas de Barcelona but has been disposing of these assets. In 2005 he made his first foray into the financial sector upon entering the capital of Banco Pastor. It bought 4.95% of the entity's securities for 122 million euros. It was a package that Caixa Galicia had sold to the bank itself.

In Banco Popular it had 1.5% but also sold its stake. In addition, it had investments in other listed companies, such as Aguas de Barcelona, ​​with 6.6%, or NH Hoteles, where it had 10% of the shareholding. In 2013, it sold the remaining 4% in the hotel chain to a Chinese group.

Ortega has a net worth of 63,000 million euros, according to the annual rich list that Forbes magazine makes. Inditex, the group that the businessman founded, had a turnover of 26,000 million euros last year.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Inditex Group
  • Telefonica
  • Spain

Reverse logistics From Black Friday to December 19, the black day of trade

Real EstateAmancio Ortega buys McKinsey headquarters in central London for 700 million euros

EmpresasAmazon creates 2,200 jobs in Spain this year