Amancio Ortega, richer than ever, celebrates ten years at the head of the Forbes List: his assets are equivalent to 8% of Spain’s GDP

The only thing that changes is that every year the difference between him and the others grows bigger. Thanks to the revaluation of the Inditex group, of which it is majority shareholder with 59% of the assetsthis year he has returned to the top 10 of the world’s greatest fortunes, behind the founders of Google.

The Forbes list is fundamentally based on the value of the companies that appear on it, and in the case of those listed on the stock market, on the behavior of their shares. Regarding this, it must be remembered that in 2023 the sales of the Spanish textile giant increased by 10.4% in year-on-year terms, up to 35,947 million euros. Thanks to this, the group closed the fiscal year with record profits of 5,381 million30.3% more than a year before, allowing the company to increase dividends by 28%, which is what it distributes among its shareholders.

This explains why the second in the table is none other than his daughter, Sandra Ortega, who owns 5% of the company due to an inheritance from her mother, who was the first wife of the Galician businessman. The first-born repeats the position she already held last year, this time with 10.4 billion; in this case, also 46% more.

Father and daughter already total 130.6 billion euros, more than the 98 remaining characters in the rankingwhich bring together 250.4 billion; between all, 27.7% more than in 2023.

To put things into perspective, some information is useful, such as, for example, the fortune of Amancio Ortega equivalent to 8.02% of Spain’s gross domestic product in 2023 and It is higher than those of Kenya (100,545 M in 2023), Oman (100,604 M) or Uzbekistan (93,922 M) and almost reaches that of Morocco (133,544 M). All this, of course, taking into account that this is the value of his assets as calculated by Forbes, that is, based on the value of his companies, not what he has in checking accounts, which are otherwise inaccessible. to the public.

How much does Inditex contribute to GDP?

If what you want to discern is how much the Inditex group contributes to the economy of our country, there are more useful studies, such as the one carried out by the Spanish Retail Textile Association (ARTE).

In 2022, Spanish textile trading companies earned 47,450 million euros from their sales and invested 38,650 million euros in purchases, which gives a balance of almost 8,800 million euros in direct added value generated, 0.72% of the national GDP of that year. year, according to the report’s authors. Well then, two thirds of the sector’s contribution corresponded to Inditexwhich in 2022 brought together 68.6% of those 47,450 million in total turnover.

If we add the indirect and induced impacts to the direct impact (the increases in economic activity generated by the investments made by the company and the labor income from employment created directly and indirectly), the balance of the entire sector increases to 19.8 billion euros. in 2022, 1.62% of GDP. Again, two thirds of that percentage correspond to Inditex. According to the ‘Advice Business Success Study for Spring 2024’, it is the fourth company that contributes the most to our country’s economy, behind the la Caixa Foundation, El Corte Inglés and Caixabank.

Ferrovial, Mercadona and the man who rivals Zara

Even so, none of the presidents of these last three companies appear in the top ten positions in the Forbes ranking, since belonging to this select group depends on the number of shares owned. With 20% ownership of the infrastructure multinational Ferrovial, the third richest in Spain is Rafael del Pino y Calvo-Sotelo, which has 7.1 billion euros. It must be remembered, his assets have revalued by 20% since his company moved its headquarters to the Netherlands in 2023. That transfer was very controversial, which Ferrovial justified by the supposed better conditions that existed in that country to facilitate his departure. to the Stock Market in the US, while Pedro Sánchez’s Executive argued that it was not necessary to leave Spain to do such a thing.

With a wealth of 5.8 billion euros (+49% compared to 2023), they follow him on the list Juan Roigexecutive president of Mercadona, and below Isak Andik, the co-founder and president of Mango, which has 4.5 billion euros. He is less known than Amancio Ortega, but Andik has a career very similar to his. Born in Istanbul to a family of Sephardic Jews, he is also a self-made man, who made his first money importing clothes from Afghanistan and selling in Barcelona markets. After opening his first store in Barcelona, ​​in 1984 he created a brand that today is the only one capable of rivaling Inditex.

The president who wants to return Deportivo to first class

The classification continues with more familiar faces. With 4,000 million euros, in sixth place is Juan Carlos Escotetpresident of Deportivo de La Coruña, who this year has reaped the fruits of the sensational results of the entity he presides over and of which he has 84% ​​of the shares, Abanca, a bank that closed 2023 with a profit of 711 million euros and more than 130,000 new customers. Recently the banker has proposed doing the same with the A Coruña club, which he has rescued after nine years of dragging debt through a capital increase that, on the other hand, has left the club’s minority shareholders ‘voiceless’. In exchange there is the promise of cleaning up the accounts once and for all and returning to the premier category, which will not be an easy task, because football has proven to be a more complex business than banking.

In seventh place overall – second among women – is María Del Pino y Calvo Sotelo, the first-born daughter of the legendary founder of Ferrovial, sister of the current president and owner of 8% of the shares, a fact that has led her to amass 3,200 million euros (+28% compared to 2023).

Maté, the most unknown of the ‘top 10’

Next is Hortensia Herrero, vice president of Mercadona and wife of Juan Roig, who has accumulated a fortune valued at 3.2 billion euros, rising seven positions on the list compared to 2023. And then, one of the most enigmatic characters in the list, businessman Daniel Maté Badenes, owner of 3% of the Anglo-Swiss metals and mining multinational Glencore. Maté was unknown – and continues to be unknown in many ways – until 2011, the year his company went public, revealing the true assets of its shareholders.

The top 10 of the largest fortunes in Spain, in which this year there are four women, is closed by Sol Daurella Comadrán, president of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, with 3,000 million euros (+50% compared to 2023).

The biggest promotion this year, for his part, has been carried out by the man who was president of Real Madrid for just one year, Vicente Boluda. Thanks to the purchase of the Dutch company Smit Lamnalco – which has turned the Valencian shipping company into the largest tugboat in the world – Boluda has gone from box 95 to 35.