Amancio Ortega’s US real estate investments expanded Tuesday with the acquisition of a $232 million apartment tower in Chicago. According to The Real Deal, the so-called West Loop Tower has 492 apartments on 45 floors and, according to The Real Deal, is the tallest building in Chicago, west of the Kennedy Expressway. The transaction was carried out through Pontegadea – the group that manages the equity holdings of Inditex’s founder – which on August 4 entered into the agreement with US fund Ares Management and F&F Realty to acquire the property.
The price paid for the West Loop Tower represents the largest outlay to acquire a building in the city since the pandemic broke out in 2020, according to local press. The United States attracted most of the founder’s investments from Inditex. In October 2022, Ortega completed the purchase of a luxury apartment skyscraper in New York, for which he paid around $487 million. Late last year, it acquired the Kiara Tower, a skyscraper with 461 luxury apartments in Seattle, for $324 million.
Adding to those assets are other logistics assets in the US, such as the $109 million purchase of a Walmart automated warehouse in California in July. The purchase of this logistics center comes a year after Zara’s founder made his first foray into the sector, acquiring a FedEx platform in Wisconsin in August 2022 for $35 million. From that moment, investments in logistics multiplied and in September 2022, according to EL PAÍS, the company completed the block purchase of seven distribution centers for a total of 905 million dollars (just over 830 million euros).
Pontegadea recorded a record profit of 2,092 million euros in 2022 (30% more than in 2021) and the estimated value of its real estate assets totaled 18,156 million euros. Office buildings, commercial buildings, luxury residences and logistics platforms make up the group’s real estate offering, which is spread across nine countries, with the US, UK and Spain being the locations where most properties have been acquired.
The founder of Inditex invests part of the dividends he receives from the textile company in the real estate sector through his real estate investment company. In May of this year, the entrepreneur received 1,108.5 million euros for the first tranche of the Inditex dividend, the payment for the full year will be 2,217 million euros.
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