NOVEMBER 30, 20 19to pay $719 million for an 80% stake in the
121-year-old German luggage maker Rimowa, fa-
vored by A-listers like David Beckham and Ange-
lina Jolie. At Rimowa, Alexandre later led prod-
uct collaborations with au courant brands like
the American skateboarding line Supreme.
Delphine, meanwhile, leads the six-year-old
LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize, awarded
each year to one designer chosen from thousands
of applicants. Louis Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh was
a finalist for the 2015 prize (he had interned at
Fendi in 2009 with his friend Kanye West). And
LVMH has launched an accelerator program for
up to 50 promising startups in the luxury goods
sector at Paris’ Station F, the brainchild of French
billionaire Xavier Niel, who also happens to be
Delphine’s long-term partner and the father of
the couple’s two children.So what do Arnault’s offspring say about which
one of them is likely to lead the company one day?
As though reading from the same script, they all
sidestep the question. “Our father is very young,”
says Delphine. “He’ll work for 30 more years,” Al-
exandre says. “I don’t think he’ll ever stop,” says
Antoine, head of LVMH corporate communica-
tions and chief of Berluti. “This is not a topic we
think about,” Frédéric says. “We hope he is going
to stay as long as possible in this role.”
“People ask me all the time,” says Arnault.
“What is most important for the group is we find
the best, and we’ll see if it’s in the family or out-
side the family.” How long will he work? “I have
no end decided.”
Though he won’t say which of his children he is
most likely to promote, he is eager to talk about
their talents. He shows off a video on his iPhone
11 of Frédéric playing a Liszt sonata in prepara-
tion for a concert he will give at a music festival
outside Paris together with his mother. Canadi-
an-born pianist Hélène Mercier-Arnault, 59, per-
forms regularly as a soloist and chamber musi-
cian. “Like a professional,” Arnault says about
Frédéric’s skill. “I’m not playing like that.”
As for sibling rivalry, Arnault and his children
paint a portrait of family harmony. The siblings
often gather for Saturday lunch with their par-
ents, and they all spend some of August at the
Arnault compound in Saint-Tropez. Only Fré-
déric admits that discord surfaces on the tennis
court. “It can get quite tense,” he says. “Our father
is very competitive. He doesn’t like losing. This is
something he’s transmitted to us.” No one close to
the family will make an on-the-record prediction
about succession. But one longtime observer says
that when Arnault finally steps down “It will be
Game of Thrones.”
Arnault sees the future playing out quite differ-
ently, convinced that his tight-knit family’s con-
trol will give LVMH an edge for years to come. In
his own mind, he’s going up against not only his
competitors in the luxury sector but also global
giants. He calls Microsoft a “beautiful company”
but notes that Gates has held onto only a small
number of shares. “Long-term he won’t be there,”
he muses.
Before proclaiming his vision for his conglom-
erate, he catches himself. “In a way, I should not
say that, because you may think I am preten-
tious,” he says. But then he lets loose: “[LVMH]
is a French monument. Because it represents
France all over the world. People know better
the name of Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Dom
Pérignon, Cheval Blanc, than anything else. May-
be they know also Napoleon? General de Gaulle?
We think it’s important that this group, for the
long term, is controlled by a French family.”FORBES.COM68
PROFILE—BERNARDARNAULT50100150200250$30012/31/15 01/06/17 01/05/18 01/04/19 10/18/19LVMH
S&P 50003/2016 03/2017 03/2018 03/2018 10/2019$50
BIL$100
BILBERNARD ARNAULT
JEFF BEZOS
BILL GATES344575427386
7211290
7613197 102(^110106)
CLOSING IN
LVMH STOCK HAS BEEN SOARING, MAKING ARNAULT ONE
OF THREE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WORTH MORE THAN
$100 BILLION. HE’S $4 BILLION BEHIND BILL GATES AND
LAGS JEFF BEZOS BY JUST $8 BILLION.
SOURCE: FACTSET.
NET WORTHS