$156,400,000,000
Bernard Arnault
Net Worth
Born in (City)
Roubaix
Born in (Country)
France
Date of Birth
05th December, 1949
Date of Death
-
Mother
Marie-Josèphe Savinel
Father
Jean Arnault
Children
- Antoine Arnault
- Delphine Arnault
- Alexandre Arnault
- Frédéric Arnault
- Jean Arnault
About
Bernard Arnault, a real-life example of "the more the merrier". He is a 71-year-old business genius and occupies the position of Chairman and CEO of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury megabrand, which has 70 different brands under it, spread across 6 sectors of manufacturing luxury products. Bernard Arnault is not only an entrepreneur and he is also a well-known art collector. At present, Bernard Arnault’s LVMH is at $113.1 billion net worth and is known as the best luxury goods brand.
Early Life
He started off his career as a civil engineer and took over the family business set up by his grandfather, in France, which was later being managed by his father.
In order to expand the family business, Bernard decided to invest in the real estate business in the USA, and that was an unusual step taken by a French businessman considering the conservative culture of French business in those days. Later on, he came with the master idea of bringing the best luxury brands under an umbrella organization. He started by investing in Christian Dior, a premium fashion and design company in 1984. That was his first possession and later in 1989, he gained control over LVMH ( Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) an amalgamation of Luxury brands that had products like leather bags, accessories, perfumes, and wine of very fine quality. Another brand name that was born out of LVMH was Sephora, a premium makeup brand. Even though all of this sounds dreamy and too good to be a true story, there was a lot of hard work and smart minds that went into building LVMH into what it is today.
Road to Success
Bernard Arnault redefined luxury’s purpose, by emphasizing the amount of creativity and hard work of every artist and craftsperson who were the foundation of the brand. He brought out the fact that he was actually focusing on the undervalued art forms while the monetary growth was a consequence of the quality of the products they provide.
By launching Sephora, he focused on the idea that there will be people who would want to buy quality products, irrespective of the backgrounds they come from. In a way, this idea was very valid, since post digitalization and in the corporate world, there was this huge ambition for quality in presenting oneself and uplifting one’s lifestyle, to the best. These products can be seen as incentives that one can aim for and end up being productive and ambitious in a healthy way.
Their leather quality is considered to be the world’s best and is famous for its waterproof and fireproof qualities. The best thing that he has set for his company is its brand value, they never give products for sale. If not sold, the unsold pieces are offered to staff at discounted prices. And still, if anything is left, they burn it out by pouring kerosene on them. And they have a whole team that makes sure the discounted goods sold for the staff doesn’t end up on eBay or any other secondary retail forums. The amount of effort put into maintaining the legacy, the name of the brand is admirable.
Challenges
Bernard was highly criticized for the idea of bringing so many brands together. Growing up he was quite passionate about music, but never held the high standards required to make it as a concert pianist. Lost in the shards of his broken dreams he decided to enroll in an elite French engineering school, which he ended up graduating in the year of 1971. Following which he found himself working alongside his father at their family construction firm, which is located in the heart of Roubaix, where his grandfather had decided to found the construction firm.
With a life full of hopes and unfulfilled dreams, the gods of fate decided to bestow some good luck. He once ended up taking a New York cab and ended up having a conversation with the driver of the cab. And being completely engrossed in the conversation he struck upon gold when he asked the cab driver whether if he knew who was the current president of their country France ( Georges Pompidou was the president then). "No", replied the driver, "but I know Christian Dior" and just like that whatever he had longed for suddenly made sense. Cogs turned and chains worked and he put together an idea following which he has conquered so many businesses today.
Failures
Bernard is a successful man, but like every other successful person of any industry, he has built himself from failures, learning, imbibing, growing. He faced his first failure circa in the 1980s, when he had taken quite an interest in promoting a subsidiary of their family company overseas, and tried to take a step by inaugurating a branch in the United States of America, but he failed miserably, fortunately. Fortunately because, it's from where he would pick up, learn and polish the aggressive tactics the American commercial would often use in their economic warm, and mould those to construct and benefit his foreseeable empire: LVMH.
Arnault has not succeeded at all the battles for conquest waged by him, or against him for that sake. In 2001, he lost a very vital and prominent battle one that would haunt him for a while. A battle that the media then would coin to be as the"handbag war" for who would take control of the very fabled Italian fashion house 'Gucci'. But ended up losing it all to his fine rival, the french luxury kind, François Pinault.
Another one of his failed tactics included the discreet tactic which was quite normal in the game of economy amongst the hedge funds. This stealth tactic used by LVMH consisted of cash-settled equity swaps, which basically was used to discreetly attain a percentage of a company called Hermès, 17% of shares to be precise. This company is known as the 182-year-old maker of impeccable quality silk scarves and the iconic Birkin bag. Learning of the malice, Hermès fought tooth and nail against Bernard Arnault, a legal battle that ran for quite a while. The protracted battle finally ended in 2017 with LVMH finally relinquishing the hold over most of the Hermès shares.
Achievements
Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur (10 February 2007)|Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur (14 July 2011)|The Woodrow Wilson Award for Global Corporate Citizenship (2011)|Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (2012)|The Museum of Modern Art's David Rockefeller Award (March 2014)|He was featured in Time magazine’s annual Time 100 issue as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007
Quotes
- Affordable luxury - these are two words that don't go together.
- A good product can last forever.
- If you control your distribution, you control your image.