Inditex's money turns to brick and mortar

Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, reportedly manages a real estate portfolio valued at around 20 billion euros through his holding company Pontegadea, according to Forbes.

Pontegadea, led by its chief executive officer, Roberto Cibeira, reinvests a significant portion of the dividends Ortega receives from the Galician textile multinational into leased, income-generating properties.

According to a ranking compiled by Forbes in April this year, the entrepreneur is the world's largest individual real estate owner, ahead of developers such as Australia's Harry Triguboff and the US's Donald Bren. At the time, the magazine valued his portfolio at around 25 billion dollars, spread across more than 200 properties in thirteen countries.

The Coruña-based group concentrates its rental assets in prime office buildings, logistics centres and hotels. The US remains its primary market by number of properties and rental income, despite a strong pace of acquisitions in Europe over the past two years.

The valuation has been revised upwards from the April Forbes estimate as the holding company has continued to make purchases. Its latest transactions include the largest refrigerated logistics centre for Lactalis in Canada, located in Oshawa, Ontario, for around 115 million euros. It also acquired a logistics warehouse in Sevenum, Netherlands, leased to Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein—both part of the PVH group—for 132 million euros.

Furthermore, Pontegadea is in exclusive negotiations to purchase the Parisian office complex Capital 8 from Invesco. According to Bloomberg, this deal could reach 850 million euros and would be the largest office sale in Europe since 2022. Forbes calculated in April that Ortega has invested 24 billion dollars in real estate over the 25 years since Inditex's stock market debut in 2001, acquiring 216 properties while selling just ten.

The latest official valuation of the portfolio, released through the holding company's accounts, corresponds to the end of 2024, when independent experts placed it at nearly 19 billion euros.

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