‘Wolf in cashmere’: Who is Bernard Arnault, the world’s richest person?

The world’s richest person doesn’t tweet.

Bernard Arnault, the French tycoon behind luxury-goods powerhouse LVMH, surpassed Twitter owner Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Tuesday to top the list of the wealthiest people on the planet. Before him, no one from France — or Europe as a whole — had laid claim to having the largest fortune on the planet.

The 73-year-old has long been a mainstay in wealth rankings, but, unlike Musk and other brash billionaires, makes only rare public appearances and isn’t personally active on social media. Though LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton oozes extravagance, with 75 labels ranging from Dom Perignon to Christian Dior to Tiffany, he’s sought a low profile in a country where bling-bling displays of wealth are frowned upon.

Billionaire Bernard Arnault is the first European to top the world’s rich list.Credit: Christophe Morin

Arnault, worth an estimated $US172 billion ($251 billion), has used European craftsmanship to turn LVMH into the world’s biggest luxury-goods conglomerate. It’s a training ground for ambitious designers seeking to make a name for themselves: Marc Jacobs and the late Virgil Abloh at Louis Vuitton, Raf Simons at Christian Dior, Phoebe Philo at Celine. They all infused the heritage brands with novelty that kept them relevant to young consumers.

While weakening markets have also taken a bite out of Arnault’s wealth this year — his fortune is down about $US7 billion in 2022 — he’s fared better than the tech billionaires who dominate the world’s rich list. That’s because demand has remained resilient for high-end products as the COVID-19 crisis has ebbed.

Paris-based LVMH generated €64 billion ($97 billion) in sales last year, a sharp rebound from the depths of the pandemic in 2020. Arnault and his family own about 48 per cent of the shares in the company, with 64 per cent of the voting rights, according to its annual report. The shares slipped 0.4 per cent in early Paris trading on Wednesday, giving the company a €364 billion market value that’s the biggest in Europe.

A representative for Arnault didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gem Spotted

Born in Roubaix in the north of France in 1949, Arnault graduated from the elite engineering school Polytechnique. He went on to work at the family business, Ferret Savinel, which focused on industrial construction, before moving in 1981 to the US, where he ventured into property development.

He returned to France and made his foray into luxury goods in 1984, when he took over Boussac Saint-Freres, the bankrupt textile group that owned a gem: Christian Dior. He spun off most of the company’s other businesses and used the windfall to buy a controlling stake in LVMH, whose two main companies, Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy, had merged in 1987.

Over the next three decades, he turned LVMH into a luxury behemoth selling Champagne, wine, spirits, fashion, leather goods, watches, jewellery, hotel stays, perfume and cosmetics through more than 5,500 stores worldwide. He was quick to grasp that China would become a key market, opening the first Louis Vuitton store in Beijing in 1992.

LVMH earlier this year lifted the age limit of its chief executive officer. That would allow Arnault to stay at the helm until 80, a sign he intends to be in charge for longer.

In his quest to stay under the radar, Arnault said in October that LVMH sold its private jet. Twitter accounts follow the planes of billionaires in an attempt to shame them about carbon emissions, and the subject became a hot topic in France, with some politicians proposing to ban or tax private jets.

“With all these stories, the group had a plane and we sold it,” Arnault said on Radio Classique, which is owned by LVMH. “The result now is that no one can see where I go because I rent planes when I use private planes.”

Billionaire battles

Though built on mostly successful acquisitions, LVMH and Arnault have had famous losses, too.

He was bested by Francois Pinault, one of France’s richest people, in buying Gucci, which is now part of Kering. He also failed in a hostile takeover attempt of Hermes International, the Birkin bag maker owned by the country’s richest family. A member of the Hermes clan called him “a wolf in cashmere” for the predatory ways he attempted to take over their company.

Arnault is building a dynasty of his own within LVMH. He has five children from two marriages, all of whom currently work at the firm or one of its brands. His second child, Antoine, 45, just got an expanded role at holding company Christian Dior SE.

Arnault, who’s known to keep a strict diet and play tennis regularly, is also an art collector and led the opening in 2014 of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne. The venue is a monumental private art museum designed by Frank Gehry, meant to house LVMH’s corporate collection as well as Arnault’s.

Bloomberg’s wealth index estimates the vast majority of Arnault’s fortune stems from his 97.5 per cent stake in Christian Dior, which, in turn, controls about 41 per cent of LVMH. The family holds an additional LVMH stake of roughly 6 per cent.

Arnault has an estimated $US10.3 billion in cash and other assets, based on an analysis that includes dividends, taxes and charitable contributions.

Arnault becomes the fifth person ever to rank No. 1 on Bloomberg’s wealth index since it debuted in 2012. The others were Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Musk.

Bloomberg

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.