Zara founder Ortega buys Florida warehouse for $113 million

MADRID (Reuters) - Amancio Ortega, the founder of Zara owner Inditex, has increased his bet on logistics real estate in the United States with the acquisition of a warehouse in Hialeah, Florida, for $113 million, his investment firm Pontegadea said on Wednesday.

The billionaire, who controls the fashion group Inditex, bought the 266,600 square-metre (2.87 million square feet) cold storage warehouse in the Miami area, Pontegadea said.

Pontegadea, which is not connected to Inditex, owns $20.08 billion worth of real estate assets mainly in luxury buildings and office towers, though over the past months it has diversified into logistics assets in Europe and in North America.

The investment vehicle, which received 2.2 billion euros in Inditex dividends this year, has been looking into energy assets, such as solar plants, electricity grids and wind farms, for the past couple of years after mainly focusing on real estate.

(Reporting by Corina Pons, writing by Inti Landauro. Editing by Jane Merriman)