Upon building himself a fast-fashion empire, Inditex founder Amancio Ortega could be looking at a logistics one soon enough.
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Through his real estate investment firm Pontegadea Inversiones, Ortega has acquired logistics warehouses in Italy for 327 million euros ($360 million), including locations in Milan and Rome, according to report from U.K.-based commercial real estate publication Green Street News later confirmed by Bloomberg.
The Italy deal came just days after Pontegadea made its U.K. logistics debut, when it acquired a 170,000-square-foot warehouse on the edge of London’s Heathrow Airport for 65 million pounds ($84.8 million).
Pontegadea is the largest direct shareholder of Inditex—itself a roughly $166 billion dollar enterprise that includes Zara , Bershka , Pull&Bear and Stradivarius among others—with a majority stake of 50.01 percent of total shares as of Jan. 31. Indirectly, Ortega owns 59.29 percent of the shares through Pontegadea and another one of his investment arms, Partler Participaciones.
It is unclear if the logistics ambitions for Ortega and Pontegadea include plans to cross over with Inditex’s apparel supply chain. But the recent moves further illustrate the fast-fashion founder’s understanding of the vitality of a strong global supply chain.
After already holding a portfolio of more than $15 billion in global commercial real estate in 2021, Pontegadea began its massive logistics push in the U.S. the next year. In late 2022, the company acquired seven warehouses across the country from Realty Income Corp. for a combined $905 million.
Five of those facilities totaled $722 million, and were rented with long-term leases to some massive brand names across retail, logistics and consumer products: Amazon , FedEx , TJX, Home Depot and Nestle. Those facilities are located in Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Texas.
The deal followed the purchase of two other distribution centers in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania for $35 million and $148 million respectively.
In 2023, Ortega splurged again on a Walmart distribution center for $109 million, paying up for a 340,100-square-foot building in the popular Inland Empire valley outside of Los Angeles. To close out the year, the investment firm acquired a 312,000-square-foot cold storage center in Hialeah, Fla. for $113 million.
With a new stronghold in the U.S., Pontegadea began making more global investments focused on industrial real estate in Europe.
The first purchase shelled out $115 million for a 1.1-million-square feet warehouse that June in Venlo, the Netherlands.
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Later that year, Pontegadea acquired another 1.2-million-square-foot in Dublin, Ireland in the largest logistics deal to ever take place in the country. That acquisition was $245 million, with about 630,000 square feet of the site serving as an Amazon fulfillment center .
Prior to the most recent deals in Italy and the U.K., Pontegadea put together one more nine-figure deal together for a Netherlands-based facility that houses another European fashion giant, Primark . Ortega and co. bought the distribution center from Blackstone in January for $110 million.
Primark has a 10-year lease on the 936,500 square-feet space, which is operated by transportation and logistics provider DSV .
In total, these investments from 2022 through 2024 have cost Ortega’s fund nearly $1.6 billion, and have enabled the billionaire retail tycoon to establish himself as a landlord to some of the most important companies in commerce.
On the retail side, Inditex’s business keeps expanding its logistics operations, which were initially unveiled in March this year.
In an earnings call Wednesday, Inditex CEO Óscar García Maceiras gave a brief update on the $2 billion logistics plan for the retailer, saying it was “on track.”
García said test operations for the company’s second distribution center in Zaragoza, Spain will start in May or June 2025, and that different projects that are part of the investment are “being executed as planned.” No other details of the projects were shared.
The new Zara distribution center will be about 3.1 million square feet, feature three levels of storage and include 113 loading docks.
Inditex also is building out new facilities for Bershka and footwear manufacturer Tempe in Valencia, Spain, and expanding another Zara DC in the Netherlands.
First-half sales at Inditex 7.2 percent on a reported basis to 18.1 billion euros ($19.9 billion) and 10.2 percent on a constant currency basis. Net income increased 10.1 percent to reach 2.8 billion euros ($3.1 billion).
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