Bernard Arnault
Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault ; (born 5 of March 1949) is a French billionaire businessman and art collector. He is the chairman and chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton SE, LVMH, the world’s largest luxury-goods company.
In April 2018, he became the richest person in fashion, Arnault briefly surpassed Jeff Bezos to become the richest person in the world in December of 2019. Bernard Arnault has again became the world’s richest person for a short time in January 2020.
Bernard Arnault brief biography
- Born : Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault
5 March 1949 (age 71)
Roubaix, France - Occupation : business man and art collector
- Nationality : French
- Years active : 1949
- Spouse(s) : Anne Dewavrin
(married 1973; divorce 1990)
Hélène Mercier (married 1991) - Children : 5
Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault was ; (born on 5 March 1949) in Roubaix, France. His father, manufacturer Jean Léon Arnault, was a graduate of École Centrale Paris. His mother, Marie-Josèphe Savinel, had a “fascination for Dior”, and was the daughter of Étienne Savinel, who entrusted her husband with the management of his civil engineering company Ferret-Savinel in 1950, and later its ownership. Ferret-Savinel later became Ferinel, and then the George V Group, before selling its real estate assets to Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE), and the real estate business eventually became Nexity.
Arnault was educated at the Lycée Maxence Van Der Meersch in Roubaix, and the Lycée Faidherbe in Lille. In 1971, he graduated from the École Polytechnique, France’s leading engineering school, and began work for his father’s company.
Eight years later he changed the company’s name to Férinel Inc. and shifted its focus to real estate.
With $15 million of his own money, Arnault, together with Antoine Bernheim, a managing partner of the French bank Lazard Frères and Co., raised the $80 million necessary to purchase Boussac Saint-Frères, a bankrupt textile company that owned the fashion house of Christian Dior. Then, in 1987, Arnault was invited to invest in LVMH by the company’s chairman, Henri Racamier. Investing through a joint venture with Guinness PLC, Arnault ousted Racamier in 1990 and started to sweep a slew of fashion companies into the LVMH fold: Christian Lacroix, Givenchy, and Kenzo; the leather goods companies Loewe, Céline, and Berluti; the jeweler Fred Joailler; the DFS group (the world’s biggest duty-free chain); and the beauty retailer Sephora.
Bernard Arnault was known in Europe as the man who revitalized French couture in 1995 by appointing British fashion designer John Galliano to replace the venerable Hubert de Givenchy at the latter’s Paris fashion house. The “Pope of Fashion,” as Arnault was dubbed by Women’s Wear Daily.
A year later moved Galliano to Christian Dior and appointed the brash British fashion designer Alexander McQueen to replace him. Arnault then hired Marc Jacobs, a young American designer, to the post of creative director at Louis Vuitton, a maker of luxury leather goods. By the early 21st century, Arnault’s fashion foresight had revived interest in these traditional fashion houses.
Bernard Arnault later was named Commander of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest order in 2007. The same year, he was featured in Time magazine’s annual Time 100 issue as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
From the year 2010 till 2013, Bernard Arnault join a member of the Board of Advisors of the Malaysian 1MDB fund.
Bernard Arnault other investments
Year 1998 to 2001, Bernard Arnault invested in a variety of web companies such as Boo.com, Libertysurf, and Zebank through his holding Europatweb. Groupe Arnault also invested in Netflix in 1999.
In 2007, Blue Capital announced that Arnault owns jointly with the California property firm Colony Capital 10.69% of France’s largest supermarket retailer and the world’s second-largest food distributor Carrefour.
Bernard Arnault entered the yacht business and bought Princess Yachts for 253 million euros in 2008. He partly took control of Royal van Lent for an almost identical amount.
In 1998, with businessman Albert Frère he purchased Château Cheval Blanc in a personal capacity. LVMH acquired Arnault’s share in 2009 to add to the group’s other wine property Château d’Yquem.
Bernard Arnault net worth
In 2019 was a very good year for Arnault, who earned an estimated profit of €35.1 billion (about $38.6 billion). This was the same year that Arnault overtook Jeff Bezos on the world’s richest list on Dec. 16, 2019. This was shortly after LMVH had acquired premium jewelery company Tiffany & Co. causing stocks to rise.
Arnault’s time at the top spot was brief, lasting less than five hours before Bezos reclaimed his crown.
Recently Forbes stated Arnault’s net worth to be $110.9 billion.
Before the coronavirus, luxury conglomerate LVMH was posting record-breaking revenues and sending Bernard Arnault’s net worth soaring. That all changed over the past few months as the pandemic forced retail stores to close, left millions unemployed, and sent both LVMH’s share price and Arnault’s net worth into a free fall.
Arnault has lost more money from his personal fortune during the pandemic than any other billionaire, Bloomberg reported. The 71-year-old CEO now has a net worth of $77 billion, down from $109 billion in January, per the Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
The French businessman is still the richest person in the fashion industry. Before the coronavirus, Arnault was growing richer at a faster rate than many other billionaires. In 2019, his fortune grew by more than $31.4 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
In March 2019, the French billionaire overtook Warren Buffett to become the third-richest person in the world. A few months later, he surpassed Bill Gates to become the world’s second-richest person for a brief period before dropping back to third. And in October, Arnault made $5.1 billion within 48 hours after a surge in share prices of his conglomerate.
Bernard Arnault face a lot in his wealth history especially when he plan on sharing In Gucci’s shares.
Going after Gucci
Like all business leaders, Arnault has suffered his fair share of failures along the way. Most notably, his 1999 attempt to takeover Gucci—described as “the bloodiest fight in fashion” by the New York Post—which resulted in litigation that Arnault ultimately lost. To his chagrin, the fashion house fell into the arms of arch-rival François Pinault for $2.92 billion.
In 2014, Arnault also admitted defeat in a four-year attempt to purchase luxury scarf-maker Hermès, after then-Hermès Chief Executive Patrick Thomas launched court proceedings to prevent LVMH from mounting a takeover. Arnault eventually agreed to relinquish his 23% stake in Hermès as a result.
Elsewhere, Arnault has unsuccessfully challenged the dominance of luxury auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s by buying British auctioneers Phillips in 1999 and got his fingers badly burnt with online retailer Boo.com, which went into liquidation in 2000.
And now today Arnault become the world forth wealthiest person where by Jeff bezos the founder of Amazon followed by Bill Gates the co founder of Microsoft and Mack Zuckerberg the founder and the CEO of well know online social media “facebook” as at 2020.
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