Amancio Ortega, owner of Inditex Group-The richest trader in the world

(Amancio Ortega)

Maybe you are not familiar with his name, maybe Inditex is not so known to you as much as some other world companies are but for brands you have you must know. According to Forbes list, with EUR 65,4 billion, Amancio Ortega is the richest European and the fourth richest man in the world.

Ortega is at the same time the richest trader in the world. Within the fashion empire which he set up and was running until four years ago, there are fashion brands Zara, Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti, Berschka, Stradivarius, Oysho. Although in 2011, when he turned 75, he decided to pass on management of fashion giant Inditex to someone younger, Ortega still has majority stake of nearly 60% of company shares.

The story of Amancio Ortega Gaon, a son of a railway worker and a housekeeper who never got formal education started March 28, 1936 in Spanish province Galicia, in Busdongo de Arbas with 60 people.

He worked for numerous shops and sewers and learnt how products and costs change on their way from producers to customers. It helped him understand how important it is that product reaches customer directly, without mediators.

Success formula

Ortega never acquired higher education. After becoming a manager of a local clothes store, he discovered that only rich individuals can afford themselves to buy fine clothes so he was even more firm in his decision to produce quality garments, available for everyone.

(Photo: Zara.com)

He soon got married so he and his wife, Razalia Maria, set up foundations of today’s fashion empire.

Ortega was procuring cheaper materials from Barcelona and selling quality goods to local shops. When he was 27, Amancio Ortega set up his own company called Confecciones Goa, which produced and sold fine bathrobes. He hired entire family. He was designing, his brother was taking care of business aspect and Josefa his sister for accounting.

He continued building his company and in 1975 he opened the first retail shop called Zara.

Until 1989, he was successfully managing almost one hundred Zara shops in Spain. With an increasing success and popularity of Zara, in 1985 Ortgea set up Inditex holding company for Zara brand and other smaller chains. Inditex became one of the biggest textile companies in the world.

Ortega’s brand continued being clear and direct. His objective is that models reach from catwalk to an ordinary consumer in only a few weeks. He wanted to produce clothes in smaller quantities so that shops would be supplied more often, deliveries and stock costs decreased. Since he kept his plants in Spain and produced smaller quantities of wardrobe, he could keep many positions and save on costs of deliveries and transfers that to consumers. Zara became so popular that Amancio Ortega almost never had the need to advertise.

Even with so many successes, Ortgea cannot stand official behavior, he refuses to wear suits and ties and despise luxury. He sticks to the fact of living as a common person and maintains with his staff personal contact.

It is knows he married twice and that he has three kids. He never gave interviews. For years nobody even knew how Ortega looks like. For the first time he agreed to pose for official photograph when in 2001 his company officially appeared at the stock market.

On the day when Inditex group stepped with its shares to IPO and when he earned USD 6 billion, he did not organize any kind of celebration. Instead of that, he went to work and found out at the news he became the richest man in Spain and then went to have a lunch at employee’s restaurant.

It is enough for a man to appear in newspapers three times in his life

(Photo: YouTube/screenshot)

Four years ago, he decided to let to management of his fashion empire although he kept 60% of ownership.

Today he has 26 buildings worldwide whose value is estimated at USD 5 billion. According to Daily Main, this year he has even become the richest real estate owner in Great Britain, exceeding this Duke of Westminster.

Gas, banking and tourism are other fields where Ortega is investing his funds and he also invested in Paideia Foundation so that he would promote entrepreneurship in Galicia.

At the threshold of his ninth life decade, he is still one of the least available rich men for media. He was always trying as much as possible to keep his privacy and privacy of his family. As he said once: It is enough for a man to appear in newspapers three times in his life – at birth, when he gets married and when he dies.