Billionaire Bernard Arnault (70 years old) is the person behind the LVMH empire, the world's leading luxury group with 70 luxury brands and about 4,000 retailers, operating in 6 outstanding fields.
LVMH owns brands such as: Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Bvlgari, Hublot, Zenith...
From a young age, Arnault has had the ability to do bold business. Having studied for an engineering degree at the prestigious school Ecole Polytechnique (France), he later worked at his family's construction company at the age of 25.
In 1979, he became the Chairman of the family company. According to Bloomberg, billionaire Arnault entered the luxury goods market in 1984 by acquiring a textile corporation that owns the Christian Dior brand.
Four years later, he sold other business segments of this enterprise and used the proceeds to buy enough shares to gain control of LVMH. Mr. Arnault currently controls about half of the stake in LVMH, and owns 97% of the stake of the prestigious luxury fashion company Christian Dior.
In 1990, Arnault owned 43.5% of LVMH, 35% of the voting rights and officially became Chairman and CEO of LVMH, and owned 97% of the shares of the prestigious luxury fashion company Christian Dior.
His LVMH merger process is considered one of the most arduous and decisive acquisitions in the history of French businesses, it is mentioned as the fear of business rivals; and then the admiration for his decisiveness. In just 11 years, LVMH's market value has increased at least 15 times, both revenue and profit increased by 500%.
Last month, Mr. Arnault joined the $100 billion club with billionaire Jeff Bezos and billionaire Bill Gates. As of July 16, Bernard Arnault's net worth had increased to 107.6 billion USD (US$200 million higher than Bill Gates).
If he/she excludes $35 billion in charitable contributions, billionaire Bill Gates would still be the richest person in the world. Meanwhile, the net worth of billionaire Jeff Bezos has increased slightly this year to $125 billion, even after reaching a $35 billion divorce settlement with ex-wife MacKenzie Bezos.
