Luxury Real Estate

Courtesy of Kirsty Bryson of Luxury Homes by VAPF

Spanish Businessman Amnacio Ortega in 7th Place

The founder of the Inditex textile empire, which houses internationally renowned names such as Zara, Pull and Bear, Massimo Dutti and Bershka, finds himself once again in one of the top 10 positions on the list of the richest people in the world. Mr. Ortega, who is 75 years old this month, has just handed over the control of the business to Mr. Pablo Isla, until now the vice-president of the company, although the camera-shy Mr. Ortega still remains the company’s majority shareholder.

Mr. Ortega will retire with an estate worth 31.000 million dollars, or 22.300 million euro, 9.100 million euro more than in 2009, when Spain was at a low after suffering the effects of the world crisis.

The Forbes list contains a record number of 1.210 billionaires worldwide, with Mexican Carlos Slim at the top of the list, ahead of Bill Gates, who still holds second place even though he has donated a third of his fortune to the foundation that bears his name.

The biggest loser of the year, dropping from 11^th place to position number 162, is the owner of Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad. The 84 year old Swede has seen his assets deplete from 17.000 to 6.000 million dollars due to tax payments after discovering he was diverting 3% of Ikea’s turnover to the tax havens of Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.

The youngest billionaires on the list are the “Facebook clan”: Dustin Moskovitz, who at 26 is the youngest, Sean Parker, Eduardo Saverin and, of course, Mark Zuckerberg, who has seen his fortune increase by 238% since 2010 and has been one of the most talked about people over the last year after the release of the film about his life “The Social Network”.

Although Asia has surpassed Europe for the first time in the last decade in number of billionaires, 332 vs. 300, respectively, Moscow is definitely the richest city in the world with a total of 79.

According to Forbes, 72% of the richest in Europe built their wealth up from scratch, with Amancio Ortega providing a clear example of this fact.