Zara owner builds US$10b property empire

[NEW YORK] Amancio Ortega Gaona, already the world's fourth-richest person based on the success of his Zara fashion retail stores, has quietly amassed a real estate empire worth as much as US$10 billion and is emerging as a formidable competitor for prime properties from London to Beverly Hills. Relying on all-cash offers, he has outbid the world's biggest institutional funds and professional property investors, such as Tishman Speyer Properties LP.

"He's at the very highest levels of high net worth investment and competing with some of the biggest sovereign wealth funds for the primest properties in the market," said Joseph Kelly, director of market analysis for Real Capital Analytics in London, a real estate research firm.

In the past four months alone, Mr Ortega has spent almost US$1 billion purchasing properties in Manhattan's meat-picking district, London's West End, Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive and Barcelona's main shopping drag, Passeig de Gracia. He recently paid one of the highest prices per square foot ever for a London office building.