Bernard Arnault Net Worth 2023: Salary, Age, Family, companies

Bernard Arnault Net Worth: Bernard Arnault is a businessman and Bernard Arnault has a net worth of US$182.8. Read more about net worth, biography, wife, age, height, family, companies and invest.

Net Worth: $182.8 Billion
Date of Birth: Mar 5, 1949 (73 years old)
Place of Birth: Roubaix
Gender: Male
Profession: Businessperson, Business magnate
Nationality: France

Bernard Arnault Net Worth

What is Bernard Arnault Net Worth?

French fortune Bernard Arnault is the head of LVMH, the greatest luxury goods company in the world. Bernard Arnault is worth an estimated $182.8 billion as of this writing. For the vast majority of his adult life, Bernard has been ranked among the world’s richest people, with the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates, according to his net worth. In 2022, on December 13th, Bernard Arnault surpassed Elon Musk to become the planet’s wealthiest individual.

Bernard Arnault Money Matters: The Full Story

In his role as CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault amassed a vast fortune. Arnault saved the Christian Dior brand from oblivion in the 1980s by purchasing the company out of bankruptcy. He leveraged the money from the sale of Dior and its subsequent rise in value to form a luxury profits conglomerate known as LVMH, which owns such namesake brands as Louis Vuitton, Moet, Hennessy, Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Tag Heuer, Bulgari, and Tiffany & Co. LVMH now manages about sixty different brands and pulls in about $70 billion annually. Market value for LVMH as of this writing is $384 billion.

Direct ownership of Dior remains with Bernard and the extended Arnault family at 97%, and Dior holds a 41% stake in LVMH. The family controls 7% of LVMH in its own right. They’re entitled to more than half of the votes cast.

In addition to his role as CEO of LVMH, Bernard is the sole owner of two vineyards in France, a fleet of Princess Yachts, five percent of Carrefour (the largest supermarket chain in France), and a priceless collection of Picassos and Warhols worth tens of billions of dollars.

When June of this year rolled around, Bernard Arnault became the first person in history to have a net worth of $100 billion. He was the third wealthiest man on the planet at the time. His wealth surpassed $108 billion in July of this year, making him the world’s second-richest individual, some $400 million more than Bill Gates. In December 2022, his $171 billion net worth overtook Elon Musk’s $168 billion net worth, making him the richest person in the planet.

Bernard Arnault Beginnings of life

Born in Roubaix, France on March 5, 1949, Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault has been in the business world since he was a little boy. Jean Léon Arnault Sr. was an entrepreneur and École Centrale Paris alum. Marie-Josèphe Savinel, his mother, was the daughter of Étienne Savinel, the founder of the civil engineering company Ferret-Savinel. In 1950, Savinel gave his son-in-law Jean Léon Arnault (Bernard’s father) the reins of running Ferret-Savinel and eventually gave him control of the company. Bernard received his degree in 1971 from the École Polytechnique, the best engineering school in France.

Bernard Arnault Family Business

After finishing college in 1971, Arnault went to work for Ferret-Savinel, his father’s company (which was previously owned by his maternal grandfather). After joining the company in 1978, he rose through the ranks to become president, a position he continued until 1984. While at Ferret-Savinel, he was instrumental in shifting the company’s focus from building to real estate, a decision that ultimately paid dividends.

Bernard Arnault luxury Goods

It was in 1984 that Bernard, with the aid of Antoine Bernheim, purchased the luxury goods company Financiere Agache. He rose to the position of chief executive officer of Financiere Agache and then rescued the bankrupt textile company Boussac Saint-Freres. Boussac was the owner of numerous brands, such as the high-end luxury house Christian Dior and the French department store Le Bon Marche. Except for Dior and Le Bon Marche, all of Boussac’s assets were sold by Arnault.

Bernard and his family still hold 97% of Dior’s direct ownership.

Bernard Arnault LVMH

Because of Dior’s rising stock price and profits, Bernard treated himself to a luxury of high-end goods. Bernard created LVMH in 1987 as a holding company for the newly amalgamated Louis Vuitton and Mot Hennessy luxury brands. To acquire 24% of LVMH’s shares, he founded a holding company with Guinness in July 1988 and donated $1.5 billion. Arnault spent an additional $600 million to purchase 13.5% of LVMH shares in response to rumors that the Louis Vuitton group was planning to try to buy up LVMH stock to form a “blocking minority.” In doing so, he became LVMH’s single largest stakeholder. In January of 1989, he spent an additional $500 million to buy his shareholdings. By that time, he had acquired voting power over 35 percent of LVMH’s total shares and 43.5% of the company itself. He prevented the LVMH group from being broken up by using his influence, and he has since guided the conglomerate through a metamorphosis that has established it as one of the world’s foremost luxury conglomerates.

LVMH expanded greatly during Arnault’s leadership. The market value of the company increased by a factor of 15 over the course of eleven years, as sales and profits each increased by a factor of five. Despite the conglomerate’s ownership of a significant number of brands (75 as of June 2020), Arnault has continued a strategy that decentralizes the brands, allowing them to be seen as separate brands with their own histories and stories. Céline (purchased in 1988), Berluti (1993), Kenzo (1993), Guerlain (1994), Loewe (1996), Marc Jacobs (1997), Sephora (1997), Thomas Pink (1999), Emilio Pucci (2000), and Fendi (2002) are only some of the other brands owned by LVMH (in 2001).

Bernard Arnault Other Investments

Arnault is a very busy man, with his hands in several different businesses in addition to LVMH. Through his holding company Europatweb, he invested investments in Boo.com, Libertysurg, and Zebank between 1998 and 2001. In 1999, he invested an investment in Netflix through his company, Groupe Arnault. In 2007, it was revealed that Arnault co-owned 10.69% of Carrefour with the California-based real estate business Colony Capital. Aside from being the largest food distributor in the world, Carrefour is the largest grocery chain in France. He’s also dabbled in the luxury yacht industry. He paid €253,000,000 in 2008 to buy Princess Yachts. Then, for almost the same price, he purchased Royal van Lent and became its sole owner.

Bernard Arnault Artwork Collection

However, Arnault has other interests than business, like art collecting. By means of LVMH, Arnault has funded shows in France by such luminaries as Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

Bernard Arnault Personal life

Arnault wed Anne Dewavrin in 1973, but by 1990, the couple had already divorced. They have two children together. He wed Hélène Mercier, a Canadian concert pianist, in 1990. They’ve started a family and it currently consists of three children. Arnault and his family have committed €200 million euros to aid in the rebuilding of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, following the tragic fire that occurred in 2019.