Zara-owner Inditex implements €30m corporate restructuring of Irish operations

Inditex, the Spanish retailing giant that owns outlets such as Zara and Massimo Dutti, is implementing a near €30 million corporate restructuring of its Irish business that will also shield from public view the financial performance of its individual brands here.

The group is dissolving the various companies that separately own Bershka, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti and Stradivarius and transferring their assets into Za Clothing, the entity that owns Zara in Ireland.

Up to now, the various retail brands owned by Inditex, the world’s biggest fashion retailer, reported their Irish financial performance individually. Za Clothing is to be renamed ITX Retail Ireland and from now on will report as a combined group, reducing the information available on the performance of the individual brands, including Zara, through the pandemic and retail lockdowns.

Outlets

Company filings show that Bershka, a youth-focused fashion chain with six outlets and pre-pandemic sales of about €20 million, is transferring assets of about €10.4 million to new group. Massimo Dutti, with normal annual sales of about €10 million, is transferring the assets of its Dundrum and Grafton Street stores with a value of about €3.3 million.

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Pull & Bear, which used to generate about €9 million annually from online sales and three Irish outlets, is moving assets worth €7.8 million. Fast-growing women’s fashion chain Stradivarius, which before the pandemic posted sales of almost €11 million from four Irish stores, has assets of almost €6 million.

Zara, with nine large outlets, is by far the largest individual component of Inditex’s business here, posting pre-pandemic sales of €108 million and with assets of about €27 million.

Overall, the various Inditex chains in Ireland had combined annual sales of about €160 million before the pandemic struck. Retail volumes have recovered well since the ending of lockdowns, however, and Inditex has previously said it is looking for more sites here.

The latest stock market filings for Inditex show its global sales are now running higher than they were before the pandemic, as it pulls ahead of its major industry rival, H&M.

The group was founded by Spanish tycoon Amancio Ortega, who sits just outside the top ten of the richest people alive, according to Forbes, with a personal fortune of $84 billion.