Inditex
Industria de Diseño Textil, S.A., better known by its acronym Inditex, is a Spanish multinational textile manufacturing and distribution company. Its headquarters are in the Sabón Industrial Estate, in Arteijo (La Coruña), Spain.
Inditex has 165,042 employees on its payroll and operates more than 5,800 stores on five continents under the main brands: Zara, Zara Home, Massimo Dutti, Pull & Bear, Bershka, Oysho, Lefties and Stradivarius.
History
Origins
At the age of thirteen, the founder of Inditex, Amancio Ortega, began working in a clothing store in the city of La Coruña, Spain, and in 1963 founded a company dedicated to the manufacture of clothing together with his wife Sabrina Sanchez. Ortega began to develop his own designs and together with his first wife, Rosalía Mera began to make clothes from his house. In the beginning, he operated as a garment manufacturer under the name of Goa Garments.
It was not, however, until 1975 when he opened the first store under the name Zara in a central street in La Coruña, Spain on Juan Flórez street. The success prompted Ortega in 1977 to install his first Zara factories in Arteijo (La Coruña), where the headquarters of the Inditex Group currently resides. During the following years, the chain spread rapidly throughout Spain. In 1978 a store was opened in Ponferrada (León) Spain, the first outside of Galicia, Spain.
1980-2000
In 1985, Industria de Diseño Textil S.A., Inditex, was created as a holding company for Zara and its manufacturing plants. In 1984 the first logistics distribution center was inaugurated. In the following years, the company moved beyond the Spanish borders, opening stores in Porto (1988), New York (1989) and Paris (1990).
In 1991, Inditex created the company Pull & Bear and acquired part of Massimo Dutti (1991). The expansion of the Inditex group continued with Bershka (1998) and Stradivarius (1999).
2001-present
2001 became an important year for the group and with the IPO of the Inditex Group on May 23 for a total value of one billion pesetas. Inditex has multiplied its market capitalization by more than five, since which debuted on the market at 18.25 euros, and just two months later, in July, the group joined the Spanish selective.
In the same year, the company launched a women's underwear store called Oysho. In 2003 Zara Home was opened and in the second half of 2008, Uterqüe was the last chain of exclusive stores opened by the group.
In 2005 Pablo Isla was CEO of Inditex. It was in 2011 when Ortega, founder and main shareholder, resigned as president and chief executive Pablo Isla became president of the company.
In 2015, the company's net openings stood at 330, reaching a total of 7,420 stores in 88 markets at the end of the year.
On November 30, 2021, the Inditex Group announced that its Board of Directors had appointed Marta Ortega Pérez as the new president of Inditex, replacing Pablo Isla, taking effect from April 1, 2022.
Financial information
In 2022, it reported sales worth a total of 32,569 million euros, a growth of 17.5% compared to the previous year. In addition, online sales grew by 4%, reaching 7,806 million euros.
Inditex was the third Spanish company in history to be worth 100,000 million euros on the stock market, reaching a market value of 107,789 million euros.
Amancio Ortega, founder of the company, is one of the richest men in the world according to Forbes.
International presence
In 1989, a year after opening a store in Portugal, the company entered the US market and expanded into France in 1990. Expansion followed to Mexico in 1992 and Greece in 1993. In 1994, Inditex opened stores in Belgium and Sweden. By 1997 the company had expanded to Malta, Cyprus, Norway and Israel. In 1998, the expansion continued to the United Kingdom, Turkey, Argentina, Venezuela, the Middle East and Japan. Canada, Germany, Poland, Saudi Arabia and many South American countries received their stores in 1999.
Italy, Luxembourg, Puerto Rico (United States) and Jordan received stores in 2001. In 2003, Inditex continued its expansion to Russia, Slovakia and Malaysia. The following year, it opened in Latvia, Hungary and Panama as well as the 2000 store in Hong Kong (China). In 2006, the company reached the rest of mainland China. In 2010, the company opened its 5000 store in Rome, Italy and its first store in India. The first stores in Australia and South Africa opened in 2011. Expansion followed into Macedonia (now North Macedonia), Armenia, Ecuador, Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2012. In 2014, Inditex opened stores in Albania.
Inditex group production centers
| Country | No. of suppliers | No. of manufacturers | Employees |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bangladés
| 81 | 139 | 386.916 |
 China
| 340 | 1.106 | 302.816 |
 Turkey
| 183 | 748 | 155.256 |
 India
| 134 | 219 | 131.435 |
 Cambodia
| 1 | 68 | 104.695 |
 Morocco
| 106 | 211 | 62.333 |
 Portugal
| 171 | 887 | 46.494 |
 Brazil
| 37 | 103 | 18.930 |
 Spain
| 229 | 208 | 6.543 |
 Argentina
| 64 | 53 | 5.505 |
 Angola
| 51 | 37 | 4.203 |
 Mozambique
| 33 | 20 | 3.137 |
- 2016 Figures
Group Brands
| Brand brand | Physical stores | Online Market |
| Zara | 1939 | 202 |
| Pull and Bear | 964 | 185. |
| Massimo Dutti | 682 | 186 |
| Bershka | 971 | 185. |
| Stradivarius | 915 | 180 |
| Oysho | 556 | 176 |
| Zara Home | 482 | 183 |
| TOTAL | 6509 |
Updated January 2022
- Zara: It is the main brand of the chain. It encompasses very different styles, from the daily clothes, more informal, to the most serious or formal, going through dresses and party costumes for events. She works fashion for women, men and children.
- Zara Home: Zara Home is specialized in articles to dress and decorate the house. Your bet on textile is complemented by products such as dishes, cutlery, glassware and decorative objects.
- Bershka: The style of the Bershka shops is youthful and informal, with image linked to music, trends and new technologies for the public between 13 and 25 years.
- Stradivarius: In the Inditex group, it is one of the most powerful brands in recent years. It is aimed at the young female audience.
- Pull and Bear: It is the young mark of the Galician group.
- Massimo Dutti: It stands out for its most classic designs, both daily and formal, and costumes, evening dresses, cocktail.
- Oysho: Inditex women's lingerie and underwear is one of the most growing brands and also gains body in the company's online strategy.
- Temp: It is the footwear company of the Inditex Group. From its International Centre in Elche (Alicante), the footwear that accompanies the fashion of all brands is designed and distributed.
- Lefties: It is a chain of low cost fashion stores that works fashion for women, man and child.
It was created in 1999, it has 127 stores and since 2014 it has been operating outside of Spain.
Inditex Brands
|
Online presence
In 2007 Inditex launched the Zara Home online store. Zara joined the e-commerce market in September 2010, opening websites in Spain, the UK, Portugal, Italy, Germany and France. In November 2010, Zara added its online presence to Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In September 2011, Inditex brought Zara's electronic platform to the United States, as well as adding the Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho and Uterqüe to online commerce.
In September 2015, Zara's online sales reached Taiwan, Hong Kong (China) and Macao (China), while Zara Home's website arrived in Australia in December. In total, Inditex's online sales operate in 41 markets.
Administration
Board of Directors
The council is chaired by Marta Ortega Pérez since April 1, 2022 and includes, among other directors, Amancio Ortega Gaona.
Major shareholders
The main shareholder is one of its two founders, Amancio Ortega, with almost 60% of the shares, through his investment companies, Pontegadea Inversiones S.L. and Partler 2006.
His daughter, Sandra Ortega, indirectly owns 5% of the company. Sandra owns 89.23% of Rosp Corunna, S.L., which in turn owns 100% of Rosp Corunna Participaciones Empresariales, S.L., to which 5.053% of the shares of Inditex, S.A. belong.
| Shareholder | Capital | Society | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amancio Ortega | 59.294% | Pontegadea Inversiones S.L. | 50.010 % |
| Partler 2006, S.L. | 9.284% | ||
| Sandra Ortega | 89.23 % of 5.053% | Rosp Corunna Entrepreneurships, S.L. | 5,053 % |
Controversy
Initial outsourcing and offshoring
The documentary Fíos Fóra analyzes the subcontracting system of small Galician cooperatives used by Inditex in its beginnings and the subsequent rapid relocation, which caused the closure of most of these subcontractor companies and their indebtedness in many cases.
Child and slave labor
The company has been accused on several occasions of using child labor as well as harsh working conditions, close to slavery in third world or developing countries. The accusations led Inditex to cancel its business relationship with more than 90 suppliers that did not comply with the code of conduct for external manufacturers, and its investigation found that they had been subcontracted without its authorization. Officials from the Brazilian Ministry of Labor indicated that Zara should have been able to detect these practices illegals tracing the production chain and did not.
Argentina
In 2013, the NGO La Alameda and the General Confederation of Labor of the Argentine Republic filed a joint complaint accusing Zara of subcontracting production in Argentina to clandestine workshops that enslave immigrant seamstresses.
Brazil
In 2011, the Brazilian Labor Prosecutor began an investigation after discovering in the State of São Paulo three sewing workshops that used "slave labor" to make Zara clothes. One of the workshops employed 52 Bolivian citizens working irregularly. The other two workshops employed 15 people, including a minor. The Prosecutor's Office initiated proceedings against Zara for exhausting work days, irregular payments, lack of safety and hygiene and ethnic discrimination. Inditex denied any direct responsibility and pointed to one of its 50 suppliers in Brazil as responsible for the situation.
In December 2011, Zara reached an agreement with the Ministry of Labor to eliminate "the precarious working conditions of the supplier companies" and invest 1.8 million dollars in social actions, with the aim of correcting the multiple complaints by slavery, which, according to Brazilian analysts, represented an admission of guilt by the company. In 2015, the NGO Repórter Brasil reported that Zara repeatedly failed to comply with the terms of the agreement, did not eliminate child labor or excessive working hours, in some cases they would exceed 16 hours a day.
In 2017 Zara paid a fine of 1.36 million euros that will be allocated to projects against work similar to slavery and child labor.
Indian
In 2012 the Research Center for Multinational Corporations (SOMO) and the Indian Committee of the Netherlands (ICN) presented a joint investigation into the practice of "Sumangali" in Tamil Nadu in India. Through this practice thousands of girls between the ages of 14 and 20, mostly from pariah caste, are sent to work in large textile factories. The report pointed to Inditex as one of the groups for which these factories work. Inditex claims to carry out specific actions to avoid this practice.
Türkiye
According to a BBC investigation published in October 2016, several factories in Turkey irregularly employ Syrian refugees with substandard working conditions and miserable wages. Among the companies that subcontracted these factories was Inditex.
Rana Plaza collapse
Tax avoidance
According to a report presented by the Group of the Greens / European Free Alliance in the European Parliament in 2016, Inditex legally avoided 585 million euros in taxes in the European Union through a business network in the Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland The Inditex group responded to the report by disqualifying it, assuring that it contains technical errors and that the group strictly complies with the law.
Plagiarism
The company has been accused several times of plagiarism.
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