Zara founder buys Amazon logistics centre in Dublin for $245 million

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish billionaire and Zara founder Amancio Ortega has bought a logistics centre mainly used by Amazon in Dublin, Ireland, for 225 million euros ($244.98 million), his investment firm Pontegadea said on Friday.

It is the first time Ortega's firm has invested in logistics real estate in Ireland, Pontegadea said. In March, it bought a luxury residential building in Dublin with 120 apartments for rent for around 100 million euros.

In 2019, Pontegadea Inmobiliaria, the firm's real estate arm, completed the purchase of two Seattle office blocks leased to Amazon. It was the Spanish firm's biggest deal in the United States at the time.

The Irish Times, which first reported the deal, said Pontegadea bought the 1.2 million square foot (111,484 square metres)industrial and logistics property in Dublin's Baldonnell Business Park from property developer Mountpark.

About 630,000 square feet of the site are occupied by Amazon.

The Ortega family investment vehicle, which cashed 2.2 billion euros in Inditex dividend this year, has pumped up its portfolio lately by investing in logistics centres, luxury buildings and renewable energy projects, in a strategy to invest in a multiple real estate assets.

($1 = 0.9184 euros)

(Reporting by Corina Pons, editing by Inti Landauro and Tomasz Janowski)