Bernard Arnault, CEO and Chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, has now become the richest person in the world replacing Elon Musk with a whooping $53 billion increase in his networth in the past 12 months.
According to the Forbes Billionaires List, Bernard Arnault's net worth now stands at $228.1 billion as of April 5. He has been serving as the CEO and chairman of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton since 1989. Louis Vuitton and Sephora are among two of the 75 fashion and beauty companies under Bernard Arnault's management at the LVMH conglomerate.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has slipped to second place on the coveted list as his net worth dropped to $192.8 billion, according to the Forbes list.
With record highs in revenue, profit, and LVMH stock, Arnault's wealth increased by $53 billion, the largest gain in a year for any billionaire, Forbes reported.
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Arnault began his professional journey with his father’s construction company, Ferret-Savinel, in 1971 after earning an engineering degree from the École Polytechnique in Paris. He became chairman of the company in 1978.
After making money from Ferret-Savinel, Bernard Arnault with his $15 million along with Antoine Bernheim, a managing partner of the French bank Lazard Frères and Co., raised the $80 million required to buy the Christian Dior fashion house in 1985.
In 1987, Henri Racamier, then CEO of LVMH, extended the invitation to Arnault to make an investment. In 1989, Arnault became the majority shareholder and ousted Racamier. He began acquiring a number of fashion businesses into the LVMH fold such as the DFS group and the beauty retailer Sephora by investing through a joint venture with Guinness PLC.
In January 2021, LVMH acquired US iconic jeweller Tiffany & Co. for $15.8 billion to transform their watches and jewellery division. This is considered to be the largest premium brand acquisition in history.
The startup capital firm Aglaé Ventures, which has investments in businesses like TikTok parent ByteDance and Netflix, is supported by Arnault's holding company Agache.
In order to ensure that each of his five children working at LVMH receive an equal share of his holding company Arnault had proposed a reorganisation of his holding company Agache in July 2022, as part of his succession planning.
(Edited by : Jerome Anthony)
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