Bernard Arnauld, a French businessman and boss of Louis Vuitton, a luxury fashion change, has an estimated net worth of $110.9 billion. But how did he make his fortune?
Arnault got rich through investing in luxury brand chains. Most of Arnault’s wealth comes from the 41% stake in LVMH he controls through his company Christian Dior.
Read more below about how Arnault made his fortune and the read about the world’s billionaires.
Arnault’s Fortune
In 1971 Arnault took control of his father’s construction firm Ferret-Savinel. Eight years down the line, 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 required to purchase Boussac Saint-Frères, a bankrupt textile company that owned the fashion house of Christian Dior.
He and Bernheim purchased a personal stake in Dior for just $15 million back in 1985, just after its owners went bankrupt. Under his direction, Dior has risen into one of fashion’s greatest symbolic and monetary powerhouses.
After he’d bought stakes in Dior, Arnault was then invited to invest in LVMH, of which he is now a majority shareholder alongside having the title as CEO and chairman. LVMH is a dominant force in the fashion industry, owning brands like Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Céline, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, and more.
Discussing his attitudes about happiness and business, Arnault said, “Happiness for me is really leading the team and, if possible, to leading them to the top – whether in business or in sports or when I play music. Money is just a consequence. I always say to my team, don’t worry too much about profitability. If you do your job well, the profitability will come.
When we discuss a brand, I always tell them my real concern is what the brand will be in five or ten years, not the profitability in the next six months. If you take a brand, like Louis Vuitton, which is the number one luxury brand in the world, what I am interested in is how we can make it as admired and successful in ten years as it is today. It’s not how much we’re going to make next year.”
What’s more, in 2019, Bloomberg announced that Arnault had surpassed Bill Gates in becoming the second richest person in the world below Jeff Bezos. However, come 2020, Arnault had lost a significant quantity of his wealth resulting in him falling below Gates and returning to his position as the third richest person in the world.
Who’s The World’s Richest Person?
With America being the dominant country for billionaires, you might be wondering who the wealthiest person in the world is, and where they’re from. According to Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest person with a net worth of $172 billion.
What’s more, the world has 46.8 million millionaires, collectively owning $158.3 trillion. But who’ll be the world’s first trillionaire?
Back in 1999, Wired predicted that Bill Gates would be the world’s first trillionaire. But two decades later, and it’s a different story.
Financial Express predicts that by 2026 Jeff Bezos will be the world’s first trillionaire, and that’s probably due to his staggering wealth that ranks above that of Bill Gates.
In summary, Bernard Arnault has accumulated a staggering amount of wealth by investing in big brand names, including LVMH. He was once the world’s second-richest person before he fell back to his position as the world’s third-richest person. So it turns out that investing can go a long way if you invest in the right things, that’s promising!