Pontegadea has picked up One North Wacker, a 51-story office tower in Chicago's business district, for roughly $550 million. Tenants include PwC, UBS Group AG and Fitch Ratings. CoStar first flagged the transaction, and a Pontegadea spokesperson later confirmed it to Bloomberg, which described the purchase as one of the largest U.S. office sales this year.
The buy extends Ortega's footprint in Chicago. Within Chicago, Pontegadea owns a 492-unit apartment tower bought in 2023, the landmark that once housed the Esquire Theater, a hotel, and additional properties. Ortega - the Inditex founder and the world's 15th richest person - oversees one of Europe's largest private real-estate holdings, encompassing hotels, logistics facilities, apartment buildings and shopping centers around the world.
Ortega has long funneled Inditex dividend income into Pontegadea, creating a steady and sizable pool of capital. In 2026 alone, his payout from the fashion retailer is slated to hit a record €3.2 billion ($3.6 billion). Earlier this year, Pontegadea spent roughly €850 million for Paris's Capital 8 office complex - its largest European property purchase and the largest office deal in continental Europe since 2022. By 2024, the portfolio's value exceeded €19 billion, and the firm branched into other sectors; in 2025 the firm agreed to buy a 49% stake in PD Ports, a UK port operator, and subsequently joined a Macquarie Asset Management-led group to acquire Australia's Qube Holdings Ltd. for about A$11.7 billion ($8.1 billion).
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Deep-pocketed, long-term capital is still hunting for prime office and logistics assets, even with all the noise around commercial real estate. When investors with reliable cash inflows keep buying trophy properties across continents, it sets reference points for pricing and signals where patient money is comfortable taking risk. If you track real estate as part of your mix, these moves are a useful read on what steady capital thinks is worth owning right now.
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