By
Bloomberg
Published
Jan 23, 2024
Fast fashion billionaire Amancio Ortega’s family office has acquired a Canadian warehouse leased by Amazon.com Inc, in the latest expansion of his property portfolio.
Ortega’s Pontegadea Inversiones SL paid about €250 million ($272 million) for the facility in Burnaby, southeast of Vancouver, according to a company spokesperson. The acquisition was first reported by the Costar News website. Ortega is the majority owner of Inditex SA.
The purchase adds the nearly 1 million-square-foot warehouse to a growing roster of logistics properties across the world owned by Ortega, founder of the Zara clothing branch. The properties include a facility used by Primark in the Netherlands, bought earlier this month, and a warehouse occupied by Walmart Inc. in California, acquired last year.
Ortega, who also owns a large portfolio of offices located in Europe and North America, is already landlord to Amazon offices in Seattle and owns a warehouse used by the e-commerce giant in Dublin. He is landlord to Meta Platforms Inc. and Apple Inc. too.
The businessman is the world’s 15th richest person with a $85.4 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His property portfolio is valued at €18.1 billion, according to the latest data available, making it the largest real estate portfolio among Europe’s family offices.
Ortega began investing in logistics in 2022 when he spent nearly $1 billion buying warehouses across the US. Purchases in Europe soon followed, with the acquisition of warehouses in the Netherlands and Ireland last year.
While commercial and premium residential real estate weigh the most in his real estate portfolio, over the years Ortega has diversified into in telecom and energy assets. Still, Inditex, the firm he founded and in which he owns 59%, makes up the vast majority of Ortega’s wealth.