We recently compiled a report on the 29 Wealthiest People in Spain, and in this article, we will be looking at the richest person in Spain.
Spain’s Booming Economy
Spain is the 15th-largest economy in the world and the 6th-largest economy in Europe, with a population of 48.38 million. According to the IMF, the country’s GDP is projected to reach $1.65 trillion as of 2024, driven by services, manufacturing, and agriculture sectors. The major driver, however, is the services sector due to Spain’s large tourism and financial services industries.
On July 3, the Ministry of Industry and Tourism for Spain reported that the country received 33 million international travelers in only the first five months of 2024. This was 13.6% higher than tourists received in the same period last year. In May, it was reported that tourists were spending an average of 1,263 euros, which was 7.3% higher than what they spent in May 2023. The daily spending by tourists also averaged 204 euros, which was 8.6% higher than last May. This increased tourism spending suggests a thriving local economy which implies stable economic growth for Spain.
On June 11, Reuters reported that the strong performance of the tourism sector resulted in the bank of Spain raising its economic growth forecasts to 2.3% for 2024, up from the prior estimate of 1.9%. Simultaneously, IMF also updated its GDP growth projections for Spain to 1.9% from 1.5% for this year.
The Financial Sector
Spain’s financial services industry is also a top contributor to the country’s GDP and growth. In 2021, the finance and insurance services industry of Spain contributed about 3.8% to the country’s GDP, according to estimates by iBerotech. As of 2022, Banco Santander S.A. ADR (NYSE:SAN) is one of the largest banks in the eurozone. In Europe, it has four banks – in the UK, Portugal, Poland, and Spain, with headquarters in Spain. It also has branches in the Americas. The bank offers private banking, investment banking, and asset management, among other financial services. The annual revenue for Banco Santander S.A. ADR (NYSE:SAN) in 2023 was $49.4 billion and it had $48.39 billion in net interest income.
Banco Santander S.A. ADR (NYSE:SAN) is working on strengthening its consumer finance business and offerings. On June 21, Bloomberg reported an upcoming consumer-finance partnership between Banco Santander S.A. ADR (NYSE:SAN) and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) across Europe, citing unnamed sources. The partnership would entail offering easy financing options to its European customers to facilitate consumer purchases. A similar digital consumer-finance partnership was signed with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) on June 10, however the Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) partnership is expected to be bigger than that.
On June 25, Bloomberg also reported that Banco Santander S.A. ADR (NYSE:SAN) found a way to use Spain’s tourism industry to clear its debts and improve its financial health. Due to increased property prices, the bank is looking to sell some of its commercial property assets, which are present in tourist areas of the country. Banco Santander S.A. ADR (NYSE:SAN) already sold hotel loans valued at around $321 million to credit investor Polus Capital Management. The bank is also considering selling other commercial real estate assets, including office buildings and hotels, which is expected to be of a similar size to the hotel loan sale.
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Our Methodology
To compile our list of the 30 wealthiest people in Spain, we consulted the real-time billionaires data from Forbes and ranked the wealthiest people in Spain in ascending order of their net worths, as of June 28.
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The Wealthiest Person in Spain
1. Amancio Ortega
Net Worth as of July 11: $112.4B
Amancio Ortega is the wealthiest person in Spain and one of the wealthiest clothing retailers in the world. He co-founded the clothing giant Inditex, known for its Zara retail chain, with his late ex-wife Rosalia Mera. He owns about 60% of the company, which has 8 brands in total.
He has invested his dividends primarily into real estate in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Chicago, Miami, and New York. Ortega earns more than $400 million in dividends per year.
Curious to learn about other wealthy people in Spain? Check out our report on the 29 Wealthiest People in Spain.
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