Who Is Bernard Arnault? The LVMH founder is the richest man on this planet.

Earlier this week, he reclaimed the title of the world’s richest particular person, and has a salvage worth of about $201 billion, per Bloomberg. He, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk like traded areas on and off over the past twelve months. 

Along the solution to the tip, Arnault has introduced his 5 adult formative years into the fold, constructing a family-lunge commerce that has resulted in broad wealth and even drawn comparisons to the hit HBO ticket Succession (which Arnault has disregarded).

Arnault is now in talks to add French magazine, Paris Match, to his rising empire for round $109 million, per the Wall Road Journal. Whereas the acquisition could per chance very well be little bigger than pocket alternate for the multi-billionaire, Paris Match’s worth comes from its social impression. The magazine has long been known for chronicling the upper echelons of French society, per the Journal. 

Here’s a more in-depth peep at how Arnault and his family rose to the tip: 

The 75-twelve months-dilapidated French businessman is the chairman and CEO of LVMH Moët Hennessy – Louis Vuitton, is named LVMH.

Arnault owns a 97.5% stake in Christian Dior, which controls 41.4% of LVMH, per Bloomberg. 

Arnault comes from the northern French metropolis of Roubaix.

He studied engineering at one in all France’s most prestigious schools, the École Polytechnique, and after graduating, he went to work for his father’s enhance company, Ferret-Savinel, per Bloomberg. 

In 1984, Arnault bought an ailing company called Agache-Willot-Boussac.

Agache-Willot-Boussac owned brands fancy French department retailer Bon Marché and the vogue home Christian Dior, per The New York Times. He renamed the agency Financière Agache and initiated a turnaround, reducing charges and selling off about a of its businesses, the Times reported. 

The strikes helped the company have an additional $112 million on income of $1.9 billion perfect about a years later.

In 1987, he supplied the vogue home Celine and funded the French model designer Christian Lacroix, per The New York Times. 

Within the behind 1980s, Arnault acknowledged his aim became once to lunge the world’s largest luxurious company inner the next decade.

He then space his sights on LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, spending $2.6 billion buying up shares in repeat to alter into the company’s largest shareholder, and at final its chairman and CEO, by 1989, per The New York Times.

Arnault married Anne Dewavrin in 1973.

The couple had two formative years, and all the method in which by their marriage, Arnault moved the family to the United States for about a years in “delivery reaction to the rise of the French Socialists and their decision to tax the well off,” per France24.

He and Dewavrin separated in 1990, per the Financial Times.

Arnault then married concert pianist, Hélène Mercier, in 1991.

Arnault reportedly wooed her by playing Chopin and other classical composers for her, per Forbes.

Love many of his fellow billionaires, Arnault lives a lavish existence.

He traveled by a $73 million non-public jet until final twelve months, selling it after Twitter accounts began tracking the plane. He owns properties in glitzy Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera. Earlier this twelve months, he supplied $22 million worth of property in the Hamptons, per the Observer. 

The French billionaire and his wife are residing on Paris’s Left Financial institution, south of the Seine River, a historic home that involves neighborhoods such because the Latin Quarter and St. Germain-des-Prés.

He also has an spectacular artwork assortment of both original and contemporary artwork that involves pieces by artists fancy Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Maurizio Cattelan, Andy Warhol, and Pablo Picasso, per Bloomberg. 

Arnault has 5 formative years: two with his first wife and three with his fresh wife.

Antoine and Delphine Arnault are his two formative years from his first marriage, whereas his youngest three — Alexandre, Frédéric, and Jean — are from his 2d marriage to Mercier, per The New York Times. 

Delphine, Arnault’s oldest daughter, has established herself as a central figure in the LVMH empire.

She began her occupation on the American consultancy agency McKinsey & Co. in Paris and became once the govt. vice president at Louis Vuitton, per Enterprise of Vogue. In January 2019, Delphine became the youngest member of LVMH’s govt committee at age 43, per mds. Delphine became CEO and chair of Christian Dior Couture in February.

Delphine married Italian wine heir Alessandro Vallarino Gancia in 2005 in what Forbes called on the time “France’s marriage ceremony of the twelve months.”

The couple divorced in 2010. She now reportedly lives with tech billionaire, Xavier Niel, and has two formative years.

Delphine is notoriously non-public about her private existence. In a 2014 interview with the Financial Times, she acknowledged, “I’m somewhat discreet. I like I could per chance per chance rather focal point on my work.”

Delphine’s youthful brother Antoine is CEO of Christian Dior SE, the retaining company of LVMH, a role he became once appointed to in December 2022.

Since 2011, he is been CEO of luxurious shoemaker Berluti, although he’ll be handing over the reins in January to Jean-Marc Mansvelt, who has been CEO of the LVMH-owned jewellery ticket Chaumet until now. Antoine will end on because the chairman of Berluti, and cashmere ticket Loro Piana. Antoine has also been a board member of LVMH since 2006, and became once named the company’s head of dialog and picture in 2018, per Enterprise of Vogue. 

Antoine is married to supermodel Natalia Vodianova, whom he reportedly met on a shoot for a 2008 Louis ­Vuitton campaign when he became once the emblem’s head of communications.

The couple lives in Paris with their two formative years, and Vodianova’s three formative years from a outdated marriage, per W Journal. 

Alexandre, the son of Bernard Arnault and Mercier, became an govt VP at Tiffany & Co. after LVMH supplied the jewellery worth.

LVMH bought Tiffany & Co. in 2021, after which Alexandre became the company’s govt vice president of product and communications. Forward of vigorous over to Tiffany, Alexandre became once the CEO of Rimowa, a German bags worth owned by LVMH.

Alexandre is longtime associates with Evan Spiegel, the chief govt of Snap. Spiegel in actual fact helpful The New York Times that Alexandre is “a terribly creative man” and that “he is continually inquisitive in regards to the emblem and the solution to explicit that.”

Arnault’s youngest son, Jean, joined the family commerce in 2021.

Arnault met then President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City, correct sooner than Trump’s inauguration in 2017, to talk about rising LVMH factories in the US.

The company opened a unique 100,000-square-foot Louis Vuitton manufacturing facility in Texas in 2019, the company’s third manufacturing facility in the United States, and Trump attended a ribbon-reducing ceremony. 

Arnault in actual fact helpful newshounds on the ribbon-reducing ceremony that he became once honored to love the president in attendance and well-known that the 2 like known each other since the 1980s.

Broken-down Goldman Sachs chief govt Lloyd Blankfein once acknowledged Arnault’s skill is in realizing the seek knowledge from for prime-raze luxurious products round the world.

“I am up to now from appreciating luxurious objects, let by myself the seek knowledge from for luxurious objects, but he became once a total visionary,” Blankfein acknowledged of Arnault, per CNBC. 

Arnault is reportedly longtime associates with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

He became once a peek at Sarkozy’s marriage ceremony to singer and model Carla Bruni, per The New York Times. 

Arnault could per chance very well be seen shaking fingers with Vladimir Putin all the method in which by the Russian president’s 2003 visit to the Château Cheval Blanc winery in France, which LVMH owns.

The 39-hectare winery is found in France’s winemaking region of Bordeaux, per LVMH’s internet pages. 

Arnault regarded as because the legendary model designer and Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld an true friend.

In a assertion upon Lagerfeld’s loss of life in 2019 posted to LVMH’s internet pages, Arnault acknowledged, “The loss of life of this dear friend deeply saddens me, my wife and my formative years.” He also acknowledged, “We most in vogue and admired him deeply. Vogue and custom like misplaced a large inspiration.”

But Arnault also has a longstanding public rivalry with François Pinault, the founder of luxurious team Kering, who’s worth about $37 billion.

Kering owns brands collectively with Gucci and Yves St. Laurent, and the billionaire also owns Christie’s public sale home, per Bloomberg. LVMH firstly save tried to originate a majority stake in Gucci in 1999, but Pinault one method or the other snatched up the emblem, per Forbes. 

Through the years, Arnault has built LVMH into an extraordinarily vital luxurious conglomerate on this planet and earned himself an spectacular nickname: “the wolf in the cashmere coat.”

He is in the attend of the appearance of Foundation Louis Vuitton.

The Frank Gehry-designed contemporary artwork museum and efficiency region in Paris opened in 2014, per The New York Times.  

In April 2019, LVMH launched a assertion on behalf of the Arnault family, pledging 200 million euros, or about $226 million on the time, to attend rebuild the Notre-Dame Cathedral, which became once closely broken in a 2019 fire.

Arnault became once not the particular one in all France’s clear well off that pledged funds toward rebuilding the historic enhance. Others integrated his rival, Kering founder François-Henri Pinault, who pledged about $113 million, and L’Oreal house owners the Bettencourt Meyers family, who pledged about $226 million. 

In October 2020, Arnault’s company agreed to aquire Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion in the plush sector’s finest-ever deal.

The contentious sale enthusiastic more than one complaints and a $400 million ticket drop from the worth firstly save agreed upon the outdated twelve months. 

In phrases of funds, the past few years were a roller-coaster crawl for Arnault and LVMH.

In January 2019, Arnault made $4.3 billion in a single day after LVMH shares surged 6.9%, per Bloomberg.

Proper six months later, on June 19, 2019, Arnault again made news when he became the third particular person on this planet to attain a $100 billion salvage worth. 

Then, the coronavirus pandemic hit, and pandemic-related shutdowns sank LVMH’s stock, sending Arnault’s private salvage worth down bigger than $30 billion by Also can fair 2020, per Bloomberg. 

Because the world spread out again, although, LVMH’s stock recovered, attributable to tough sales in model and leather goods and an uptick in alcohol sales, particularly Champagne. 

And the put up-pandemic years were proper for the company. Up to now in 2023: it recorded 42,240 billion euros in income in the principle half of the twelve months, up 15% from the identical interval final twelve months, per a mid-twelve months document from LVMH. Profit from recurring operations, too, is up 13% from the principle half of 2022, the document well-known.

On the tail raze of 2022, Arnault dethroned Elon Musk, and claimed the tip region because the richest man on this planet.

This April, his salvage worth even surpassed the $200 billion mark making him the third particular person ever, in the attend of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, to originate so.

He is since toppled attend down to 2d, and is worth about $167 billion, per primarily the most up-to-date estimates from Bloomberg. 

LVMH’s headquarters in Paris had been in brief stormed by protestors in April who’re adverse to the French executive’s proposal to raise the country’s retirement age from 62 to 64.

On the identical day, Arnault’s fortune elevated by $12 billion.

Arnault reportedly meets with his 5 formative years for a monthly lunch in the non-public dining room at LVMH to yelp them on the company’s technique and manager efficiency.

And extra special fancy the HBO sequence “Succession,” there has been appreciable speculation about which of Arnault’s formative years will at final rob over the LVMH empire. Arnault, nonetheless, acknowledged he is taught his formative years to prize the company over private disagreements from a young age. “For now, all of them derive on massive,” he previously acknowledged.

French prosecutors were investigating Arnault in a money laundering probe for his dealings with Russian businessman, Nikolai Sarkisov.

Officials are taking a gaze into proper property transactions between Arnault and Sarkisov in the French ski resort of Courchevel, where it appeared as if Sarkisov reportedly bought more than one properties utilizing intermediary companies, however the raze-buyer turned out to be Arnault. The French billionaire allegedly paid Sarkisov roughly €20 million, whereas Sarkisov turned over a €2 million income. Arnault has reportedly been beneath investigation since final twelve months.

Arnault has been stunning imprecise about who will at final rob the reins of the company.

“Essentially the most easy particular person contained in the family or delivery air the family desires to be one day my successor,” he is previously acknowledged. “On the other hand it’s not one thing that I am hoping is a duel for the cease to future.”

And he will almost definitely be disregarded comparisons to a Succession-vogue battle between his formative years for control of LVMH. The New York Times reported that “he hates this talk, and takes distress to decrease parallels to the ticket.”

Arnault is reportedly in talks to aquire French magazine Paris Match for round $109 million.

The weekly magazine became once launched in 1949 and, fancy the American magazine Lifestyles, incorporates a aggregate of worldwide news alongside leisure, custom, and model, per the Worldwide Center of Pictures.

It is known in France for its spreads of politicians, celebrities, and the “crème de la crème of French society,” per the Journal.