Europe's wealthiest man made another €1.2 billion

Monaco on the 29th June 2012 - Port Hercule International Jumping of Monte Carlo Amancio Ortega attends the International Jumping of Monte Carlo.

Piovanotto Marco/ABACA/PA Images

LONDON — The billionaire fashion tycoon Amancio Ortega is set to earn a €1.2 billion (£1 billion) from the company he created, which owns brands like Zara, Pull & Bear, Bershka, and Massimo Dutti.

Inditex announced on Wednesday that it would pay out a dividend of €0.68 per share, 13.3% up on the year previous after a record set of results. The Guardian reported that this will see Ortega net €1.2 billion, thanks to his 60% shareholding in Inditex through two family companies.

Ortega, 80, is worth $72.2 billion (£58.8 billion) according to Forbes and is Europe's wealthiest man. He is the fourth richest man in the world, behind only Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos. The Guardian says Ortega has netted over €6 billion (£5.2 billion) in dividends from Inditex since 2010 alone.

Spaniard Ortega's best-known venture is High Street fashion retailer Zara. He is a notoriously reclusive billionaire and began his working life at aged 13 or 14 as a messenger boy in a shop, working his way up to found Zara in the Northern Spanish city of A Coruña in 1975 when he was 40.

Inditex was set up in 1985 as a parent company for Zara to help manage its expansion. Inditex had sales of €23.3
billion (£20.3 billion) in 2016 and made a net profit of €3.2 billion (£2.8 billion). The group employs 162,450 people.

 

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SEE ALSO: How Amancio Ortega came from poverty to become Europe's richest man