Success Story of Bernard Arnault the Largest Shareholder of LVMH | BizzTycoons
He is the owner of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy known as LVMH the World’s largest luxury goods company. The Third Richest Man with a Net Worth of about $178.4 Billion US Dollars. He is Bernard Arnault.
LVMH Controls around 60 Subsidiaries each representing a prestigious brand around the globe. The total number of brands owned by LVMH together with its subsidiaries is 75. He faced critics from people who consider managing many products together will be impossible especially when you are in the fashion industry where trends are continuously changing but Arnault prove them wrong and made it’s every product a brand in the international market.
He was born in 1949, in Roubaix, France. His father owes a Civil Engineering company Ferret-Savinel. He began his first job in his father’s company after getting an education from one of the leading engineering schools in France.
Arnault career started in 1971, when he convinced his dad to shift the focus of his company to real estate, and then later in 1984 as a young real estate developer he heard that the French government was set to choose someone to take over the Boussac Saint-Freres empire, a textile and retail conglomerate that owned Christian Dior. Arnault was totally aware at that time that French Luxuries goods are worldwide famous, he first came to know about his fact during his visit to America.
With the help of the senior partner of Lazard Freres, Antoine Bernheim Arnault acquired Financiere Agache, a luxury goods company. He became the CEO of Financiere Agache and subsequently won the bidding war for Boussac Saint-Freres, buying the group for a ceremonial one franc and effectively took control of Boussac Saint Freres along with Christian Dior, Boussac’s assets included the departmental store Le Bon Marche, the retail Shop California, and the diapers manufacturer Peaudouce.
After acquiring Boussac he terminates more than 9000 workers in two years and got the nickname of Terminator by French media. He then sold the company’s all assets except Christian Dior Brand and Le Bon Marche departmental store.
After such strong reforms, he stand back his company Financiere Agache back to health, and in 1987 the company becomes profitable again. The company earned $112 Million US Dollars on a revenue stream of $1.9 Billion Dollars.
The real Success journey of Arnault begins in the process of acquiring LVMH. In 1988 Arnold provide $1.5 Billion Dollars to formed a holding company with Guinness that held 24% Shares of LVMH. Arnold wants to become the Largest Shareholder of LVMH so he spent an additional amount of $600 Million Dollars to buy 13.5% more shares of LVMH in response to the rumors that Louis Vuitton Group was buying LVMH’s stocks to form a blocking minority. Arnault has a better corporate strategy than Henry Racamier, Louis Vuitton’s President. He further invested $500 Million Dollars to gain control of a total of 43.5% of LVMH Shares and 35% of its Voting Rights. He then turned on Racamier, stripped him of his power, and ousted him from the Board of Directors.
On 13, January 1989 he become the elected chairman of the Executive Chairman board. After his takeover of the company he give the company a visionary development plan and transformed it into the world’s largest luxury group in the world.
He continued to acquire different brands and make them part of his LVMH, which now consists of 60 subsidiaries with 75 different brands.
On 24 May 2021, Arnault temporarily become the World’s Richest Man with a Net Worth of 187.3 Billion Dollars surpassing Amazon’s Founder Jeff Bezos, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
