The founder and first shareholder of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, has resumed his real estate investments in the US through his real estate investment ‘arm’, Pontegadea, with the purchase in Chicago of an apartment tower for 232 million dollars -some 212 million euros-. This has been confirmed to Europa Press by sources familiar with the operation. Specifically, through Pontegadea, it has acquired this luxury apartment property from Ares Management and F&F Realty, which has 492 apartments spread over 45 floors, according to ‘The Real Deal’, which specifies that it is the tallest building from Chicago west of the Kennedy Expressway.
This purchase in the West Loop is the highest price paid for an apartment block in downtown Chicago since before the pandemic, according to the Chicago Business newspaper. In this way, Pontegadea continues with its real estate investments in the United States after buying the Kiara tower at the end of last year, a skyscraper with 461 luxury apartments in Seattle for 324 million dollars (about 305 million euros).
In October 2022, the founder of Inditex closed the purchase of a luxury apartment skyscraper in New York for close to 500 million dollars, for which he paid around 505 million euros. To these assets are added other logistics assets in the United States, such as the one acquired last July when an automated Walmart logistics center was built in California (United States) for 109 million dollars (98.9 million euros).
Pontegadea investments in the US
The purchase of this logistics center in California came a year after the founder of Zara made his first foray into logistics with the purchase of a FedEx platform in Wisconsin (United States) worth around 825 million euros and a second logistics asset, specifically a distribution center in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), for around 147 million euros.
Ortega entered a total of 1,108.5 million euros on May 2 for the first remuneration of the year that Inditex will pay to its shareholders, which is half of what the Galician firm will collect huge dividends this year.
The businessman will receive this year 2,217 million euros in dividends from the company, above the 1,718 million he received for this concept last year. The founder of Inditex invests part of the dividends he receives from the textile company in the real estate sector through his investment firm Pontegadea Inmobiliaria.
Ortega owns the largest Spanish real estate agency, focused on the purchase and management of large buildings, with a portfolio of real estate assets deeply integrated by non-residential office buildings, located in the center of large cities in Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Asia. .
