Bernard Arnault is the world’s richest man and leads a luxury-goods conglomerate, LVMH, that now looks too big to fail. His succession plans have relevance beyond the firm. Jane Lewis reports
Profile
The world’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, likes to describe LVMH as “une affaire de famille”, says The Economist, which, given he presides over a €400bn luxury-goods empire, is “both a humble brag and true”. All five of Arnault’s children now work for the family business – a fact cemented last week when two of his younger sons (Alexandre and Frédéric) joined their older siblings from his first marriage (Delphine and Antoine) on the LVMH board. Only the youngest, Jean, 26, who has a senior role in the group’s watch business, is now without a seat – yet. “He has time, he is young,” observed the patriarch.
A lupine litter of grafters
Having recently raised the company’s retirement age to 80, the 75-year-old “wolf in cashmere”, as the billionaire is known thanks to his killer dealmaking instincts, shows no sign of loosening his grip on LVMH – whose august heritage brands (75 in all) range from Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, to Moët & Chandon, Fendi and Tiffany. The Arnault family controls 48% of LVMH’s equity and 64% of the voting rights. Still, the boardroom reshuffle suggests that succession plans for his “lupine litter” are well under way. No one can say they’re an indolent lot, says The Telegraph. “We raised them to be grafters, and they are,” says Arnault. In a famous story, retold by Le Monde, 14-year-old Antoine sent one of his baby brothers a wry postcard when he was born. “Dear Alexandre, I hope your birth went well. I advise you to start working right away, because otherwise…”
Arnault views his children rather like his brands, says the Financial Times. “Take a fine name and nurture it over decades, ensuring that it has both surface polish and business competence.” It’s a lesson he probably assimilated young. Growing up in Roubaix – the historic textile region of northern France – he witnessed the collapse of many old family firms as their heirs squandered their legacies. His own inheritance was his father’s construction firm, Ferret-Savinel (later Ferinel), which he took control of in his early 20s in 1971.
Arnault’s education had fitted him for the role – he graduated from Paris’s École Polytechnique with a degree in engineering – bu
