The railworker’s son who is now the world’s richest man: How reclusive Spanish founder of fashion chain Zara has amassed a fortune of $79.5billion – and is set to hand over his empire to his glamorous daughter. The Spanish founder of the Zara fashion chain has overtaken Bill Gates to become the world's richest man. Amancio Ortega's personal fortune leapt by $1.7billion this week to $79.5billion - taking the Inditex owner past the Microsoft co-founder's estimated $78.5billion. Already Europe's richest man, the 80-year-old - whose glamorous daughter Marta is expected to take over management of the business - now tops the global list. Marta, 31, has undergone training at the firm, including stacking shelves when she was younger. Despite rumours that she is due to succeed her father, Inditex - parent company to Zara, Massimo Dutti and Pull&Bear - will not confirm her as successor. Forbes reported that Ortega became the world's richest man on Wednesday when Inditex shares went up 2.5 per cent. He now has a larger net worth than US investor Warren Buffett and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. It is not the first time Ortega has topped the list. He was briefly ahead of Bill Gates in October before a surge in Microsoft shares put him back in second place. The son of a railway worker from La Coruna in Spain, Ortega transformed clothing group Inditex from a tiny family dressmaker into Spain's biggest company. He has turned Zara into a byword in chic for the money-conscious, transforming the apparel business with its'fast fashion' model. Affordable imitations of catwalk designscan move from drawing board to store within two weeks, and poor sellers are pulled off the shop floor even quicker. In Madrid, he owns No. 32 on the Spanish capital's main shopping drag Gran Via. The Art Deco building, built as one of the city's first grand-scale department stores in the 1920s, now houses biggest store in Spain for arch-rival Primark. In February, Ortega made his first foray into Asia, buying a 22-storey plaza in Myeongdong, Seoul's trendy shopping district.

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