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Bernard
Arnault
is the primary shareholder, chairman,
and chief executive officer of the Moet
Hennessy Louis Vuitton company which focuses
on producing and marketing a variety of
luxury goods including the popular brands
Moet champagne, Christian Dior, Dom Perignon,
and Louis Vuitton.
Bernard
Arnault was born on March 5, 1949 and
grew up in Roubaix in the north of France.
He attended the Ecole Polytechnique, an
engineering school, and helped run his
family's construction and property business
firm after graduation. The company, named
Ferret-Savinel, surged under Arnault's
supervision and began building time shares
on the French Riviera. After the French
Socialist rise to power in 1981, Arnault,
along with his wife and children, moved
to the United States where he continued
his construction business in Palm Beach,
Florida.
When
the political atmosphere in France changed
in 1983, Arnault moved his family back
to his native country and took over the
struggling textile firm, Boussac which
owned the brand Christian Dior. It was
the French government who had been looking
for someone to acquire the company and
Bernard Arnault put up $15 million of
his own money with some additional finances
to purchase it. His entire reasoning behind
the acquisition was to gain control of
the Dior label and gain a foothold on
the luxury market.
Arnault
began building his empire by selling off
various divisions of the Boussac company
that had nothing to do with his luxury
business goals. Much of that money went
to purchasing 24% of the controlling shares
of the LVMH enterprise. After a bitter
battle with the executive staff, Arnault
eventually gained control over the company
and laid off a number of managing executives
in order to rebuild the company to meet
his vision.
Bernard
Arnault shifted the company's focus away
from the traditional trends and onto the
new and creative energies that were immerging
within France. He wanted to harness the
creativity of the fashion world and bring
it to the luxury marketplace. Part of
this change included hiring a new designer
by the name of John Galliano. Arnault's
experience with business gave him the
strength and knowledge he needed to rebuild
the company and his training as a classical
pianist gave him an understanding of the
creative arts. This combination provided
Arnault with a powerful foundation on
which to build the future of LVMH.
Arnault
continued to acquire brands throughout
the 1990s and purchased luxury names such
as Givenchy, TAG Heuer, Sephora, and a
number of wine and spirit labels. He was
criticized for his large luxury conglomerate
but many of his competitors found that
Arnault was making both business and financial
strides with his decisions.
With
the changing economies of the 21st century,
however, Bernard Arnault found that much
of the world was not purchasing the luxury
goods they had craved in past years. As
a result, many of the brands under the
LVMH company struggled to make money and
stay afloat. Arnault, however, was not
dissuaded and continued to focus on quality
and luxury while realizing that some of
his brands and stores needed to be downsized.
Despite any financial problems, Arnault
still managed to keep a tight hold over
some of the world's most well-known luxury
brands in the industry.
This Bernard Arnault biography
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