Spain’s Ortega overtakes Buffett

Gains in company’s shares help surge septuagenarian’s wealth to $46.6b

Amancio Ortega, the septuagenarian Spaniard who founded retailer Inditex SA, yesterday bumped Warren Buffett from his perch as the world’s third-richest person.

The 76-year-old tycoon’s fortune rose $1.6 billion (Dh5.88 billion) to $46.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as shares of Inditex gained 3.8 per cent to close at a record. That places the owner of the Zara clothing chain above the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman, who has a net worth of $45.7 billion and had ranked No. 3 on the index since its inception on March 5.

Ortega’s wealth has surged 32 per cent — $11.4 billion — this year amid a market rout in his native Spain, where policy makers are resisting pressure BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama, said. Ortega “has a more concentrated holding, and that implies more risk. You may have these fits and starts between them going forward.”

Inditex shares rose in Madrid yesterday, joining a rally of European stocks, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government backed the ECB’s plan to buy bonds from debtracked countries such as Spain. Berkshire Hathaway shares fell 0.5 per cent in New York after increasing its cash hoard to the highest level in a year as Buffett pared bets on consumer products stocks. On August 3, the company posted a secondquarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates.

Ortega is $27.6 billion behind Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim, the world’s richest person. Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates ranks No. 2 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a $63 billion fortune.