Amancio Ortega and his daughter Marta Ortega attend CSI Casas Novas Horse Jumping Competition on July 20, 2018 in A Coruna, Spain. Photo / Getty Images
Amancio Ortega and his daughter Marta Ortega attend CSI Casas Novas Horse Jumping Competition on July 20, 2018 in A Coruna, Spain. Photo / Getty Images
The company behind fashion juggernaut Zara had billions wiped off its market value after a shock announcement about its billionaire founder's glamorous daughter.
Amancio Ortega founded Zara in 1975 and is now Spain's richest man, with a staggering net worth of $112 billion.
The 85-year-old controls around 60 per cent of Inditex's shares and in 2015 was briefly the richest person on the planet when Inditex's stock peaked.
Today, Inditex boasts 6654 stores across the globe, including its Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Bershka and Stradivarius labels.
Ortega's glamorous, blonde daughter Marta has worked for parent company Inditex – now the world's biggest clothing retailer – for 15 years after starting out as a mere shop assistant in London.
But from April 1 next year, she will take over the top job after being named as the €88 billion company's next chair in a surprise announcement regarding Inditex's "generational handover process".
She will replace Pablo Isla, who took over as chair in 2011 after Ortega retired.
In a statement, the 37-year-old said she had "lived and breathed" the family business for her entire life.
People walk past a Zara store in Barcelona, Spain. Photo / AP
"I have always said I would dedicate my life to building upon my parents' legacy, looking to the future but learning from the past and serving the company, our shareholders and our customers," Ortega said.
"I have lived and breathed this company since my childhood, and I have learned from all the great professionals I have worked with over the last 15 years."
The unexpected announcement was intended to quell fears over the firm's succession – but instead, it sparked a share price bloodbath, with shares down by as much as 6 per cent in the wake of the announcement on Tuesday.
It represented a capital loss of billions for Inditex, which has recently rebounded after the crushing Covid pandemic.
That sentiment was echoed by experts such as Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quiros, the president of consultancy Freemarket, who told the Financial Times the move was a risky one.
"One of Amancio Ortega's great successes is that he professionalised the company and reduced the role of the family," he said.
"This is a backward step."
Marta Ortega and her husband Carlos Torretta attend Roberto Torretta fashion show during the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2020 on July 08, 2019 in Madrid, Spain. Photo / Getty Images
Spanish investment firm Alantra agreed, telling The Guardian "the changes are bad news for Inditex".
"We would have expected a more orderly and smoother transition period, with Isla supervising in a non-executive role," the company told the publication.
Oscar Garcia Maceiras, who currently serves as general counsel and secretary of the Inditex board, has also been appointed chief executive, effective immediately.
Born in 1984 in Vigo, Spain, Ortega is the only child of the Inditex's founder and his second wife, Flora Perez.
She has worked for Inditex since the age of 23, when she landed a role as shop assistant in a London store.
Since then, she has worked her way up, most recently working on Zara's brand image, and in her spare time enjoys a passion for horseriding and languages.
She is a regular fixture at the front row of fashion shows, rubbing shoulders with fashion icons like Anna Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg.
In 2018, she wed second husband Carlos Torretta, who works in Inditex's public relations department, in a lavish ceremony which was splashed across the society pages of Europe's glossy magazines.
Ortega has one son with her ex-husband Sergio Alvarez Moya, and she welcomed daughter Matilda, her first child with Torretta, in 2020.
