Ranking
number seven on Forbes’ latest list of the world’s billionaires is a Spanish
entrepreneur worth $31 billion. His name is Amancio Ortega Gaona and he is the
richest man in Spain and the second richest in Europe.
Together with his first
wife, he founded what became the largest fashion group in the world: Industria
de Diseño Textil, S.A., better known as Inditex.
But Ortega
wasn’t always the rich man he is today. In fact, he started out as a poor boy
in a simple Spanish family (born on March 28, 1936), with his father working on
the railroad and his mother bringing some extra money into the house by working
as a maid. This explains why Ortega was only 13 when he started working as a
delivery boy for some shirt stores in La Coruña, Spain. Even though he was a
mere teenager, the boy soon understood the basics of business and realized that
costs grew as products changed hands from the manufacturer to the actual
consumer. He became determined to find ways of cutting extra costs by
eliminating the need of middlemen. He wanted to get the products directly to
the consumer.
Ortega
continued to work in the textile industry for a very long time and after a
while he became the manager of a local clothing shop. There he saw that good
quality apparel was only available for the wealthy, and he decided to change
this reality. He started thinking of good ways to make high quality clothes
more affordable. One solution was to begin manufacturing his own products,
using cheaper but good quality fabrics imported from Barcelona. As a result, he
founded his own company and named it Confecciones Goa (the first letters of his
name, in reverse order) and produced good quality yet very affordable
bathrobes.
His success
was great and in 1975, at 39 years of age, he was ready to open the retail
store that would eventually become one of the most popular chains of fashion
boutiques in the world: its name was Zara. The store was located just across
the street from the most renowned department stores in La Coruña and Ortega
soon became famous for always choosing the best spots for his new shops. His
stores attracted many clients who were thrilled to buy high quality clothes at
very reasonable prices. The result was a spectacular growth of Ortega’s
business: by 1989 there were almost one hundred Zara stores in the whole
country. The success was so great, that Ortega almost didn’t even need to
advertize at all.
As his
popularity continued to grow, Amancio Ortega decided to found Inditex, the
holding company for Zara and other brands. Over a quarter of a century later
(the company was founded in 1985), Inditex now has over 92,000 employees and it
includes famous brands like Zara, Zara Home, Stradivarius, Pull and Bear and
more. His goal was to bring new designs from the runway to the stores in only a
matter of weeks and also to continue to keep the products affordable. His
factories being located in Spain, Ortega managed to save shipping costs and
also offer jobs to people in his country.
In 2001
Inditex went public and Ortega retained 59.29% of the company, which soon
turned him into one of the wealthiest people on Earth. This however didn’t also
turn the billionaire into a flashy rich person. He continued to keep his very
low profile and stay away from the prying media. There are very few photos of
Amancio Ortega available for the public eye.
He doesn’t
dress very formally, as he prefers jeans and t-shirts to suites and ties. He
now lives with his second wife in an apartment building in A Coruña and he
never gives interviews. The media shy billionaire announced his imminent
retirement from Inditex and said that his place will be taken by the company’s
current vice president and CEO, Pablo Isla. This will push Ortega even further
away from the media attention, making him one of the most modest rich men we’ve
ever seen.
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