Amancio Ortega’s Journey from Fast-Fashion Tycoon to Logistics Kingpin

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Upon building himself a fast-fashion empire, Inditex founder Amancio Ortega could be looking at a logistics one soon enough.

Through his real estate investment firm Pontegadea Inversiones, Ortega has acquired logistics warehouses in Italy for 327 million euros ($360 million), including locations in Milan and Rome, according to report from U.K.-based commercial real estate publication Green Street News later confirmed by Bloomberg.

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The Italy deal came just days after Pontegadea made its U.K. logistics debut, when it acquired a 170,000-square-foot warehouse on the edge of London’s Heathrow Airport for 65 million pounds ($84.8 million).

Pontegadea is the largest direct shareholder of Inditex—itself a roughly $166 billion dollar enterprise that includes Zara, Bershka, Pull&Bear and Stradivarius among others—with a majority stake of 50.01 percent of total shares as of Jan. 31. Indirectly, Ortega owns 59.29 percent of the shares through Pontegadea and another one of his investment arms, Partler Participaciones.

It is unclear if the logistics ambitions for Ortega and Pontegadea include plans to cross over with Inditex’s apparel supply chain. But the recent moves further illustrate the fast-fashion founder’s understanding of the vitality of a strong global supply chain.

After already holding a portfolio of more than $15 billion in global commercial real estate in 2021, Pontegadea began its massive logistics push in the U.S. the next year. In late 2022, the company acquired seven warehouses across the country from Realty Income Corp. for a combined $905 million.

Five of those facilities totaled $722 million, and were rented with long-term leases to some massive brand names across retail, logistics and consumer products: Amazon, FedEx, TJX, Home Depot and Nestle. Those facilities are located in Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Texas.

The deal followed the purchase of two other distribution centers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for $35 million and $148 million respectively.

In 2023, Ortega splurged again on a Walmart distribution center for $109 million, paying up for a 340,100-square-foot building in the popular Inland Empire valley outside of Los Angeles. To close out the year, the investment firm acquired a 312,000-square-foot cold storage center in Hialeah, Fla. for $113 million.