31 August, 2017
Just a few hours ago, Forbes came out with the news that Amancio Ortega, the co-founder of Inditex and its subsidiary high street clothing brand Zara, is now the richest man in the world.
The post Amancio Ortega Overtakes Bill Gates, Is Now The World's Richest Man appeared first on 360Nobs.com.
Yesterday Ortega gained the top spot by a small margin of $200 million.
Bloomberg, which also publishes a widely-referenced rich list, still awards Mr Gates the title of world's wealthiest, estimating his fortune at $85.8bn, followed by Mr Ortega at $83.7bn and Mr Bezos at $83bn. He gained $1.2 billion in the previous month. Gates' fortune declined earlier this month after a filing with the SEC revealed that he donated $4.6 billion worth of Microsoft stock to his foundation in June.
Bill Gates has been knocked off the top spot of the richest person by a Spanish billionaire that you probably have never heard of before.
Ortega's career began when he founded fast-fashion giant Zara with his then-wife Rosalia in 1975. They turned the company into a global powerhouse with more than $100 billion in market funding.
A resident of Spain, Ortega no longer has a day-to-day role at the company.
Mr Ortega, according to Forbes, no longer had a day-to-day role at Inditex but still holds a vast amount of stock and has recently focused on pouring some of his cash into other investments, like worldwide real estate. He typically collects over $400 million in dividends from Inditex every year. A drop in shares of Inditex in Madrid Thursday appears to have dashed Ortega's hopes at dominance, with some noting investors are impatient with a wait for first-half earnings due September 20. Over the years, as the Inditex stocks have risen so has his net worth.
