Amancio Ortega is not having the best welcome to the summer. For the second consecutive week, he has recorded negative figures regarding the assessment of his assets, primarily due to the stagnation of the price of his main source of income: Inditex.
The Spanish billionaire has lost two positions in the last fifteen days and, consequently, has temporarily exited the “top 10” of the world’s greatest fortunes as updated in real-time by Forbes.
The Difficult Thing is Not to Arrive, It Is to Stay
At the beginning of 2024, the millionaire based in La Coruña entered the coveted club of $100 billion as a precursor to sneaking into the top 10 of the world’s wealthiest individuals. The founder of Inditex waited nearly a year to finally ascend to the tenth position in the Forbes list of greatest fortunes.
Since then, Ortega has changed his position due to the stock market fluctuations intensified by Trump’s tariff war. However, this veteran investor remained relatively stable between the eighth and ninth positions , thanks to the consistency afforded by his real estate investments through Pontegadea, which helped maintain his fortune at around $131.8 billion .
However, the evaluation of his wealth has faced numerous challenges since Inditex announced its quarterly earnings. Although the results were positive, showing a growth of 1.5% , amounting to €8.247 billion , investors were not satisfied, believing that the growth figures were insufficient given the low increase in market performance.
As a result, the company’s stock initiated a bearish rally , dragging down the fortunes of its primary shareholder, who holds 59.294% of their assets through their companies Pontegadea Inversiones (50.010%) and Partler 2006 (9.284%).
Inditex is Still Decisive for Ortega
To contextualize this decline, prior to the earnings announcement, the stock price closed at €49.21 . However, it currently trades at €43.39 , its lowest price since April 2025. To date, the firm’s stocks have fallen by 13.73% this year.
This progressive decline in stock value has had a direct impact on Ortega’s net worth. In recent hours, he has reported losses estimated at over $2.3 billion , leading to a revised fortune of $117.6 billion .
Following this recent decrease in his net worth, the Spanish billionaire now ranks twelfth, falling behind Michael Dell, whose estimated fortune of $121.1 billion places him eleventh on the Forbes ranking. Despite this, Ortega remains slightly ahead of Bill Gates, whose fortune is rated at $116.5 billion , thereby securing Gates’s thirteenth position.
The tenth position on the Forbes list is now occupied by Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, whose total wealth stands at $134.5 billion , having added $5.5 billion to his net worth recently.
The landscape is changing rapidly, yet the player remains the same. While Ortega stands firm as a key figure in the business world, recent market fluctuations highlight the relentless ebb and flow of wealth among the ultra-rich. It is a reminder that in the game of wealth, the trajectory is often more critical than the destination.
Image Credit | Gtres, Unsplash (Praswin Prakashan)