Billionaire Zara Owner Agrees to Buy Seattle Luxury High-Rise

(Bloomberg)—Amancio Ortega, the billionaire founder of the Zara clothing chain, is doubling down on US luxury residential real estate with a deal to buy an apartment building in Seattle.

Ortega’s family office Pontegadea has agreed to buy the 40-floor Kiara skyscraper for $323 million, a spokesperson said on Thursday, confirming an earlier report by newspaper El Pais.

This is Pontegadea’s second acquisition of premium residential real estate in the US, after agreeing to buy a New York building earlier this year. Traditionally, the firm focused on high-end office buildings and retail sites. Ortega receives hundreds of millions of euros in dividends every year for his 59% stake in Inditex SA, the parent company of Zara.

One of Pontegadea’s most iconic investments is an office-building in Seattle, where the firm is landlord to Amazon.com Inc.

In recent years, the company has sought to diversify beyond real estate, with investments in telecommunications and energy infrastructure as well as renewable-energy plants. This year, Pontegadea also invested about $700 million in logistics facilities in the US, a first in the sector for it.

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