Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Bernard Arnault, the rich French origin and boss Louis Vuitton (LVMH), succeeded in overtaking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk after his fortune touched US $ 199.3 billion or equivalent to Rp. 2.889 trillion. Arnault’s wealth has jumped as his stock has plunged more than 35 percent since the start of this year.
Beneath Arnault are Bezos, who has a current net worth of $190.6 billion and Musk, who has a net worth of $184 billion. Both, according to real time net worth Forbes, on Thursday (8/12), perched on top of Arnault for quite a long time.
Previously, in July, Arnault’s wealth also rivaled that of Bezos and Musk. However, the throne of the number one richest person is only for the age of corn. In fact, in May and June, the three tycoons raced to seize the position of the richest people.
Arnault became $100 billion richer in just a year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. His wealth comes from 47 percent of LVMH’s holdings, including luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon, Christian Dior, Sephora and Tiffany & Co.
It is known that LVMH has dozens of luxury brands, ranging from clothes, shoes, bags, to cosmetics. LVMH became the world’s largest luxury retail giant under Arnault.
Then, who is Arnault? How’s the run?
The owner’s full name Bernard Jean-tienne Arnault was born on March 5, 1949 in Roubaix, France. He was born to Marie-Josephe Savinel and Jean Leon Arnault, a civil engineer.
Little Arnault worked in his father’s company, and succeeded in persuading his father to focus on business real estate Ferret-Savinel.
Three years later, Arnault sold its industrial construction division for US$15 million and began acquiring textile companies.
From there, he spread the wings of his business and took over Financiere Agache, winning the auction of Boussac Saint-Freres, the textile and retailing director of Christian Dior.
After buying Boussac, the first thing Arnault did was to terminate the employment relationship (PHK) with 9,000 workers. Not surprisingly, he got the nickname ‘The Terminator’ alias destroyer.
It didn’t stop there, he also sold almost all of the company’s assets. It only maintains the Christian Dior and Le Bon Marche Department Store brands.
In July 1988, Arnault paid $1.5 billion to form a holding company with Guinness which held 24 percent of LVMH. Then, he continued to increase his share ownership until he became the majority shareholder.
He also managed to seize the leadership seat of LVMH. Through his cold hands, he developed LVMH into one of the largest luxury goods groups in the world along with Swiss Richemont and Kering.
In just 11 years, Arnault’s sales and profits have increased 5 times and LVMH’s market value has skyrocketed 15 times.
Business Octopus to Art Collector
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