Laurence Dollimore
THE rich just keep getting richer, it seems, as Forbes’ Rich List has revealed Spain’s top 100 earners are €1.5 billion better off than they were last year.
However there is one man at the top of that list who has more wealth than the 43 who come after him combined.
It is of course, fashion king Amancio Ortega, who this year has a staggering net worth of €63 billion.
It’s a €5 billion increase on last year and is more than TEN times that of Spain’s second-richest – his daughter Sandra Ortega.
Sandra, heiress to her father’s Inditex fortune (the company behind Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear and many more), has a net worth of €6 billion.
Rafeal del Pino, owner of Ferrovial, comes in third with a €4.1 billion fortune, up from €3 billion last year.
The president of Iberostar, Miguel Fluxa, remains in fourth place, with €3 billion to his name, followed by Juan Roig, president of Mercadona, who falls from third to fifth with a €2.7 billion fortune.
The top five fortunes of the list add up to €78.8 billion, accounting for 50.3% of the total.
Amancio Ortega’s fortune is equivalent to the sum of the 43 richest who follow him.
According to Forbes, Ortega has increased his fortune in the last year by maintaining his investment strategy in real estate, which has a net worth estimated at €7.5 billion.
Julio Iglesias is the only person on the list that is not dedicated exclusively to the business world, with a fortune of €800 million putting him in 37th place.
Its a three point drop for Spain’s most famous singer, after having occupied 34th place last year with €50 million more to his name.
