Amancio Ortega Gaona was born on 28th March 1936, in Busdongo, province of León, Spain, and is an entrepreneur in the clothing sector, and is considered to be the richest man in Europe and the fourth-richest man in the world. With his then – wife Rosalia Mera, he founded today’s company group Inditex, whose chairman he is. Ortega has been active in business since 1963.
How much is the net worth of Amancio Ortega? It has been estimated by authoritative sources that the overall size of his wealth is close to $80 billion, as of the data given at the beginning of 2018. Business is the major source of Ortega’s fortune. In 2017, Forbes Magazine rated him as the fourth on the list of the richest people in the world.
Amancio Ortega (Businessman) Net Worth $80 billion
To begin with, Ortega is the son of a railway employee. He began his career at the age of 14, as a handyman at a clothing store La Coruña.
Concerning his business career, his activities as a textile entrepreneur began in 1963. First, Ortega was a manufacturer of bathrobes, then in 1972, he founded the company Confecciones GOA (his initials read backwards), the first company of today’s Inditex Group. The company grew steadily and began exporting to various European countries. In 1975, the first Zara store was opened in downtown La Coruña, and subsequently a chain of shops sprang up all over Spain. In 1988, the first branch was set up abroad in Porto, Portugal, followed in 1989 by a branch in New York City, and a year later in Paris. In Germany, the first Zara branch was opened in 1999, and today, there are over 1700 Zara stores in Europe, North and South America, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa, indicative of Ortega’s rising net worth.
Due to the increasing business volume and Ortega’s expansion of business fields, the Inditex Group was founded in 1985. In addition to this, Zara includes the brands Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Stradivarius, Bershka, Oysho and others. According to its own data, the Inditex Group had a turnover of 15.9 billion euros in 2016, and has more than 120,000 employees – the group’s eight retail chains have more than 6,000 stores in 86 countries/markets.
In addition to the textile industry, Ortega is also active in the real estate and financial sector, in motor trade and in investment fund management.
Finally, in the personal life of the businessman, Ortega, after divorcing his first wife in 1986, in 2001 married Flora Pérez Marcote, a former employee at one of his factories, in his second marriage. Both live so withdrawn in La Coruña that for years his face was one of the biggest secrets of the Spanish business world. There are hardly any pictures of him; in fact, when he appeared in public in 2000 in preparation for the company’s IPO in 2001, he made headlines in the Spanish financial press. He has not given any interviews so far.
Moreover, Ortega is known for his philanthropic efforts. The entrepreneur has a son from his first marriage, who was born with severe disabilities. Ortega therefore promoted the founding of Paideia in 1986, an institution that helps children and young people with disabilities, and which was led by his first wife until her death. In 2001, the Amancio Ortega Foundation, a private non-profit organization, was established; its mission is to promote activities in culture, research, science and education. In 2012 alone, Ortega donated 20 million euros to the Catholic charity Caritas, according to his statements, to help socially disadvantaged people who suffered from the economic crisis.
