Bernard Arnault, who with his family became the holder of the greatest fortune on the planet, surpassing Elon Musk, patiently built a world empire of luxury products, the LVMH group, through landmark acquisitions that established his reputation as an insatiable entrepreneur.
Arnault, 73, and his family, have headed the ranking of billionaires by Forbes magazine since Thursday (15), with a net worth of US$ 184 billion, surpassing Musk, president of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.
“A paramount quality in our family is patience,” declared Frenchman Arnault in 2012 in a television interview. Ten years later – and after more than doubling the LVMH group’s worldwide revenues to €64 billion ($68 billion) a year – he told Radio Classique that “we can keep progressing, but we need to be patient”.
LVMH, the world’s leading luxury goods group, has acquired more than 75 brands over the years, including Louis Vuitton, Moët Hennnesy, Kenzo, Guerlain, Fendi, Céline, Sephora, Bulgari, Tiffany and others.
The businessman also invested in media outlets in France (Les Echos, Le Parisien, Radio Classique), a controversial option that should be seen above all as patronage, Arnault told the French Senate in January of this year.
During the hearing, Arnault also acknowledged that he acted to block advertising funds destined for the newspaper Libération because of a headline that displeased him.
The businessman, born on March 5, 1949 in Roubaix, in the north of France, started working in his father’s construction company at the age of 22, after studying at the prestigious École Polytechnique, and convinced him to change fields and invest in real estate incorporation.
In 1981, after the election of the socialist François Mitterrand to the presidency, he settled in the United States for three years. Upon his return, he acquired the Boussac group, a heavily indebted textile company, and promised that there would be no layoffs.
dior
Even so, he adopted a drastic plan to cut staff and kept only some of the company’s activities, including the haute couture “maison” Dior. Arnault was 35 years old.
“I surprised my father when I went to visit him and he said that we should reorient the family business and invest in something more promising: Christian Dior”, explained the businessman recently to Radio Classique.
Bernard Arnault had just laid the cornerstone of his luxury goods empire.
To take control of the LVMH group, which was born out of the merger between luggage manufacturer Louis Vuitton and wine and spirits group Moët Hennnesy in 1987, he took advantage of the rivalry between the two controlling families and took control of the company in 1989 , after 17 lawsuits.
“He is a tough negotiator, one of a kind, a visionary who knows how to surround himself with the right people and always achieves his goals, one way or another,” Arnaud Cadart, investment manager at the Flornoy group, told AFP.
But his career also records some failures, for example the acquisition of the Italian brand Gucci by rival François Pinault, who commands the PPR group (Pinault Printemps Redoute), in 1999, or his frustrated attempt to take control of the leather goods manufacturer Hermès .
He doesn’t like talking or publicity. A few months ago, after realizing that social networks now track the movements of celebrities’ business jets, he decided to sell the LVMH group’s plane. “Now nobody will know where I’m going because I use leased planes,” he told Radio Classique.
“Entrepreneurs have to face – sometimes completely unfairly – the criticisms of the moment, because for some years now the country’s mentality has turned against big companies,” Arnault complained in 2016 to the France 2 TV channel.
That same year, the award-winning documentary “Merci Patron!” [Obrigado, patrão!] of the current radical left-wing deputy François Ruffin, took Arnault as the target of his social satire.
Obama, Putin, Trump, Macron
Arnault’s career is rife with controversy. In 2021, LVMH paid €10 million ($10.6 million) to avoid prosecution over an espionage scheme.
In 2013, Arnault renounced his application for Belgian nationality and apologized for his much-maligned decision amid a national debate over taxation and tax exile for the richest.
The billionaire was received by the main world leaders, from the Americans Barack Obama and Donald Trump –who inaugurated a Vuitton factory in Texas– to the Russian Vladimir Putin.
In 2014, then-French President François Hollande presided over the opening of the Louis Vuitton Foundation –a temple to contemporary art– and his successor, Emmanuel Macron, was the guest of honor at the opening of La Samaritaine, a luxury shopping center in a historic building. from Paris in 2021.
Married to a pianist, Arnault has five children who work for LVMH, but he has no plans to retire yet. LVMH’s last general meeting extended the mandatory retirement age for the post of chief executive to 80.
translation by Paulo Migliacci
I have over 10 years of experience working in the news industry. I have worked for several different news organizations, including a large news website like News Bulletin 247. I am an expert in the field of economics and have written several books on the subject. I am a highly skilled writer and editor, and have a strong knowledge of social media. I am a highly respected member of the news industry, and my work has been featured in many major publications.
