Zara founder tops UK’s richest landowner list

Founder of one of the world’s biggest fashion retailers, Amancio Ortega has added ‘biggest land owner in Britain’ to his list of achievements, according to the 2014 Estates Gazette Rich List.

Being head of Inditex, which counts Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka and Pull and Bear in its fashion portfolio, Ortega has been listed as the fourth richest man in the world with a fortune of 35 billion pounds, and now he has overtaken the Duke of Westminster to become Britain’s richest property investor.

According to the Estates Gazette Rich List, serialised by the Daily Mail, Ortega has topped the list of super-rich landowners, while the Duke has slipped to seventh position, after spending 660 million pounds on London property in the past year alone. Ortega’s 4 billion pound global property empire includes Devonshire House in Piccadilly opposite Green Park, as well as a number of retail units near Oxford Street, and property in London’s Mayfair.

The publication's rankings take into account personal wealth, so although the Duke of Westminster's 2.8 billion pound investment in the UK is greater than Ortega's, his entire wealth is lower at 8.4 billion pounds.