With a net worth of $192.3 billion (£151bn) at the time of writing, according to Forbes, Bernard Arnault is the third richest person in the world. The chairman and CEO of fashion giant Möet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), Arnault, went from working for his father's construction company to managing one of the planet's biggest conglomerates and, in recent years, he's been vying for the title of world's richest person with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.
Read on to discover the story of the so-called Pope of Fashion, some of the surprising brands under his control, and why his secretive (and super-rich) kids have been labelled "nepo babies".
All dollar values in US dollars
Now 75 years old, Arnault was born Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault on 5 March 1949 in Roubaix, Northern France (pictured). He went to school in Roubaix and Lille before studying engineering at the École Polytechnique in Paris, graduating in 1971.
Arnault's father Jean Léon owned a civil engineering company called Ferret-Savinel. After graduating from the École Polytechnique, Arnault started working for the company as an engineer – and within three years he'd turned the business's focus to real estate under the new name Férinel.
He quickly became the company director and president, replacing his father by the time he was 30.
In 1984 Arnault left Férinel and bought the near-bankrupt textile company Boussac, stripping all its assets apart from the department store Bon Marché and fashion house Christian Dior.
In interviews, he's described his mother Marie-Josèphe Savinel as having an "obsession" with Dior while he was growing up.
In 1987 Arnault founded LVMH, overseeing the merger between luxury houses Möet Hennessy and Louis Vuitton. Backed by the Irish brewers Guinness, Arnault became LVMH's biggest shareholder, taking over the company as chairman and CEO just two years later.
Arnault is pictured here with LVMH's then-vice-president Alain Chevalier, who was CEO of Möet Hennessy at the time.
Arnault quickly expanded LVMH with a series of luxury acquisitions, which he deliberately kept separate from the parent group: Céline in 1988; Berluti and Kenzo in 1993; perfumer Guerlain in 1994; Loewe in 1996; Marc Jacobs and cosmetics department store Sephora in 1997; Thomas Pink in 1999; Emilio Pucci in 2000; and Fendi, DKNY and French department store La Samaritaine in 2001.
There have been a few surprises among the luxury brands in Arnault’s buying sprees. When he bought Berluti and Kenzo in 1993, he also bought the French newspaper La Tribune. He sold it, then snapped up financial newspaper Les Echos and daily newspaper Le Parisien.
LVMH also owns Investir-Le Journal des Finances, a weekly business magazine.
Despite being a decidedly French group, Arnault wanted a grand American presence for LVMH. The company's flagship US headquarters, the 23-storey sculpted glass LVMH Tower (second from left), opened on 57th Street in New York in 1999, with a Christian Dior boutique on the first two floors.
In 1999, Arnault began what the New York Post described as "the bloodiest fight in fashion": a "creeping takeover" bid for Gucci. When his shares topped 34%, Gucci retaliated by creating an employee stock option plan to dilute his stake.
Gucci then sold out to François Pinault’s PPR (now Kering) for $2.92 billion, the equivalent of $5.5 billion (£4.3bn) in today's money. Arnault took the case to court but lost.
Arnault also invested heavily in the dot-com boom. Having bought into MP3.com and eBay, he set up a European internet fund called Europ@web, reportedly investing $91 million of his own money, the equivalent of $172 million (£135m) today. However, in 2000, as he was about to float it for $3.3 billion ($6bn/£4.7bn in 2024 money), one of his major gambles, e-tailer Boo.com, went into liquidation. The Europ@web project was subsequently shelved.
Arnault has had better success with other digital ventures. In July 1999 he reportedly invested $30 million (around $56m/£44m today) in Netflix when it was still a DVD rental firm, before carrying out a planned divestment a few years later.
It might seem an unlikely pairing, but Apple’s Steve Jobs sought Arnault's advice when he was thinking about opening Apple stores in the early 2000s.
Arnault says Jobs told him: "You know, Bernard, I don’t know if in 50 years’ time my iPhone will still be a success but I can tell you, I’m sure everybody will drink your Dom Pérignon".
Members of the Arnault family are keen skiers, and, in 2006, LVMH opened the Cheval Blanc ski resort in Courchevel. The hotel group now has resorts in the French West Indies, Maldives, St Tropez, and Paris.
Every billionaire seems to have a superyacht – but why buy just one when you can snap up a whole yacht company? LVMH bought Princess Yachts in 2008 for around $257 million, the equivalent of $375 million (£295m) today.
It also bought the shipyard Royal Van Lent, which built Arnault’s luxurious superyacht Symphony. Boasting eight staterooms, a glass-bottom swimming pool, and room for 36 passengers, the impressive vessel is thought to be worth $150 million (£118m).
At the suggestion of his son Antoine, Arnault decided to throw open LVMH’s doors in 2011. "Les Journées Particulières" now take place each October, when members of the public can tour dozens of LVMH houses, including the Louis Vuitton ateliers in Asnières and Fendi’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome.
Some 20,000 people visited in 2022, the last year for which data is available.
Arnault was made an honorary Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour in 2011. Two years later, he was made a KBE – Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire – for "services to business and the wider community", thanks to LVMH’s ownership of British brands such as Thomas Pink and Glenmorangie whisky.
Arnault took designer John Galliano under his wing in 1995, making him the first Briton to head a French haute couture house at Givenchy and then Dior. Galliano even made Arnault's daughter Delphine’s wedding dress.
But after making anti-Semitic comments in a bar, Galliano was sacked in 2011 and convicted of making public insults. He sued the house of Dior and Galliano for wrongful dismissal, but a French labour court ruled against him.
In 2012, Belgium revealed that Arnault had applied for dual citizenship, as Paris looked to impose a now-defunct 75% tax on incomes of over $1.1 million at the time.
He denied doing it for tax reasons and withdrew the application a year later as "a gesture of my attachment to France and my faith in its future", saying all French people should "do their bit" for the country.
In 2014 Arnault agreed to relinquish his 23% stake in French design house Hermès and not to buy any shares in the luxury rival for five years.
It ended an acrimonious four-year attempt to buy out control of the scarf-maker, with lawsuits filed by both sides amid accusations of insider trading, blackmail, and unfair competition.
Arnault remained Dior’s biggest individual shareholder until 2017 when he announced a $13.1 billion ($16.8bn/13.2bn) deal to acquire the fashion house and fold it into LVMH.
The purchase made him Europe’s wealthiest man.
In late 2018, LVMH announced that it had acquired luxury hotel, train, and river cruise company Belmond for $3.2 billion ($4bn/£3.1bn today).
Belmond, formerly known as Orient-Express, was established more than 40 years ago with the acquisition of Hotel Cipriani in Venice and has a portfolio of 46 hotels, restaurants, and rail and river cruise experiences.
It goes without saying that LVMH is a huge success. Following the high-profile acquisition of luxury jeweller Tiffany & Co in January 2021, the conglomerate is now the most valuable company in Europe and currently comprises 75 brands, including Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty line.
Arnault says he was heavily criticised for putting so many brands into one group but that competitors now try to imitate the model, "which is very rewarding for us".
However, aside form making money, the conglomerate has been behind some some significant gestures in recent years...
Demonstrating Arnault’s philanthropic side, LMVH pledged $224 million ($275m/£216m when adjusted for inflation) to a fund to restore Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire ripped through the 850-year-old church in April 2019.
LMVH called its donation a show of "solidarity with this national tragedy".
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck almost a year later, LVMH made another charitable gesture when it paused perfume production at three of its factories to start producing hand sanitiser instead. The fashion giant donated the sanitiser "at no charge" to public hospitals in Paris and other French health authorities.
In July 2020, it also donated 10,000 tubes of sanitiser gel to the charity Secours Populaire Français, which organises days out for vulnerable families and children.
Given his incredible wealth, it's no surprise that Arnault has expensive tastes.
Alongside his previously mentioned superyacht, he reportedly owns the 133-acre Indigo Island in the Bahamas’ Exuma Cays, where neighbours include Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, and Eddie Murphy.
Arnault is also a serious art collector, with a treasure trove of thousands of works including pieces by Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, and Pablo Picasso. He's pictured here with former French president François Hollande and Frank Gehry in front of an oil painting by Gerhard Richter.
He claims the first piece he bought in the early 1980s was a painting by Monet.
Arnault is reportedly a keen tennis fan and has widely expressed his admiration for Swiss tennis star Roger Federer, who works as an ambassador for Möet Chandon.
At a party, Arnault called him a "living god" and has even played doubles with his idol alongside his sons.
In 1973, Arnault married Anne Dewavrin and the couple had two children together, Delphine and Antoine. They separated in 1990.
In 1990, Arnault married his second wife Hélène Mercier (pictured), a French-Canadian concert pianist. (Arnault himself is an amateur classical pianist). The couple now lives in Paris' Left Bank. They have three sons: Alexandre, Frédéric, and Jean.
All of Arnault’s five children have entered the world of LVMH, sparking accusations of nepotism. Antoine is chairman of Loro Piana, former chief executive of Berluti, and current chief executive of the family's holding company Christian Dior SE.
Delphine sits on the LVMH board, is a director and executive vice president at Louis Vuitton and is also the head and CEO of Dior. Meanwhile, Alexandre is an executive vice president at Tiffany & Co. and joined the LVMH board this year.
Frédéric, pictured here with former Miss Universe Paulina Vega, became strategy and digital director at luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer in 2018. Earlier this month, it was also announced that Frédéric had been promoted to managing director of the LVMH holding company Financière Agache. It's his third promotion of the year, after becoming the CEO of LVMH watches in January and joining the LVMH board in April.
Meanwhile, Arnault's youngest son Jean, who was born in 1998, is the brand's watches director.
Delphine's appointment as the head of Christian Dior seems to form part of an effort by Bernard Arnault to cement his family's control over the LVMH empire. Many people believe that Delphine will ultimately succeed her father as president of the conglomerate.
As The Guardian reports, there is a risk of a succession battle between Delphine and her younger brother Antoine, who in December 2022 was promoted to run the holding company that manages LVMH and Bernard's colossal fortune. However, the family has refuted this claim. Speaking to The Times, Antoine said: "I know it's disappointing for a lot of people, but we actually get on well."
What's more, the board recently upped the age limit for its CEO from 75 to 80, suggesting Bernard Arnault could remain in the driving seat for another five years.
In the meantime, LVMH continues to go from strength to strength, firmly placing Bernard Arnault in the ranks of the world’s richest people.
While the long-term future of the company's leadership may be uncertain, one thing's for sure: Bernard Arnault is certainly giving Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos a serious run for their money.
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