How Bernard Arnault divides his children into leadership positions in the luxury goods group LVMH

Luxury goods are booming. This is also evident from the fact that the Frenchman Bernard Arnault has been the richest man in the world since January 2023. He overtook Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.

This is not surprising if you look at the company figures of the luxury group LVMH, in which Arnault has had a majority stake since 1989: in the fall of 2022, LVMH announced a 20 percent increase in turnover for the third quarter to 19.8 billion. In the first nine months, the group turned over a total of 56.5 billion euros – a number that surprised even analysts’ expectations.

So it seems like a good time for CEO Bernard Arnault to fill several key positions. For example with your own children.

The 73-year-old Arnault came to his fortune with clever entrepreneurship, but also thanks to a “kick start” from his father. He made a small fortune in construction. Bernard Arnault started his career by raising $15 million in 1985 with this deal to buy Christian Dior.

He has been Chairman and CEO of LVMH since 1989. With a market value of around 346 billion euros, the luxury goods group is the most valuable group on the stock exchange in Europe. One of the most recent additions: In January 2021, LVMH acquired American jeweler Tiffany & Co. left — for $15.8 billion in what is considered the largest luxury brand acquisition of all time.

The LVMH conglomerate comprises a total of 75 luxury brands, including fashion labels such as Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Dior and Marc Jacobs, but also the liquor brands Moët & Chandon, Hennessy and Dom Pérignon. In addition to Tiffany & Co. LVMH also acquired a majority stake in the German cult company Birkenstock in 2021.

Bernard Arnault has two children from his first marriage: Delphine, 47, and Antoine, 45. Delphine has worked in her father’s group since 2000, the last 10 of which were at Dior and Louis Vuitton, where she was Vice President.

On Wednesday, the group announced that Delphine Arnault will become Dior’s new CEO from February 1. She succeeds the Italian Pietro Beccari, who has held this position since 2018. This in turn gets the main post with the figurehead and namesake of LVMH, Louis Vuitton. Investors were apparently happy with the change of management: the share of LVMH rose more than two percent on Wednesday.

The management restructuring shows: Arnault wants to further increase his family’s influence on his empire.

The change in management follows the recent appointment of Antoine Arnault, Delphine’s younger brother, as CEO of the family holding company that owns the majority of the Arnault family’s interest in LVMH. Through this holding company, the family controls the luxury concern in practice.

Bernard Arnault has three more sons with his second wife. They all also work at LVMH: Alexandre Arnault, 30, is a top executive at the recently acquired Tiffany & Co. At the age of 28, Frédéric Arnault is already CEO of the Swiss watch brand TAG Heuer.

And the youngest Arnault descendant already holds a respectable position: Jean Arnault, 24, leads marketing and product development for the watch division at Louis Vuitton.

Theoretically, all five of his children would be eligible to succeed Papa Arnault. Because the richest man in the world has yet to make arrangements for his successor — and hasn’t shown much interest in retiring as LVMH boss. The group recently raised the maximum age for CEOs from 75 to 80.