Page 64 - Forbes - USA (November 2019)

U p close, Arnault’s polished appear-

ance is like a suit of armor. On an
overcast Friday morning in late
September, he is attired in a selec-
tion of LVMH brands, including a
pin-striped suit by Celine, a navy tie by Loro Pi-
ana, black leather slip-ons by Berluti and a white
cuff-linked shirt by Dior with his initials em-
60 broidered just below his heart. Slim and 6 foot 1,
he stays fit playing four hours of tennis a week,
sometimes with his friend Roger Federer. “I try
L T not to be fat, as you see, and I do a lot of sports,”
U
A he says.
N Those games are among his only breaks from
R
A a workaholic schedule that starts at 6:30 a.m.

D in his 17th-century mansion in the posh 7th Ar-
R
A rondissement on Paris’s Left Bank. He begins
N each morning listening to classical music, scan-
R
E ning industry news and texting family members
B
and brand chiefs. “What I have in mind every
—

E morning is that the desirability of a brand should
L
I be as strong in ten years,” he says. “It’s really the
F
O key to our success.” By 8 a.m. he’s in his office at
R 22 Avenue Montaigne, where he stays as late as
P
9 p.m. Occasionally he’ll take a 20-to-30-minute
pause to play the Yamaha grand piano in a room
down the hall from his ninth-floor office.
“He works 24 hours,” says Delphine Arnault,
44, Arnault’s oldest child, from his first marriage,
and the executive vice president of Louis Vuitton.
“When he sleeps, he’s dreaming of new ideas.”
Every Saturday, he prowls his retail stores, re-
arranging bag displays and making suggestions
to clerks. He visits as many as 25 stores, includ-
ing the competition, in a single morning. “It’s a
ritual,” says his son Frédéric, 25, who works at
ly stock deal. Two years later it bought the fine- Micromanager LVMH’s top watch brand, TAG Heuer.
wool purveyor Loro Piana for a reported $2.6 Arnault frequently Arnault relays details from his store visits to
visits this Louis Vuitton
billion. Arnault’s most recent acquisition was in location next door to the chiefs of his top brands. He recently alert-
April when LVMH paid $3.2 billion for the Lon- his Paris offices. ed Louis Vuitton CEO Michael Burke that the
don-based hotel group Belmond, whose opulent new “it” bag, the $2,480 Onthego tote, was not in
holdings include the Cipriani hotel in Venice, the stock at the Place Vendôme shop. “He complains
luxury train line Orient Express and three ultra- when too many SKUs are sold out,” says Burke,
luxe safari lodges in Botswana. who has worked with Arnault since 1980.
“Bernard Arnault is a predator, not a creator,” At least once a month, Arnault travels in his
says a banker who was close to the Boussac deal. Bombardier jet to visit some corner of his empire.
Arnault has not succeeded at every conquest. In October, he visited the small town of Keene,
In 2001 he lost what the media called the “hand- Texas, where he and Donald Trump cut the rib-
bag war” for control of fabled Italian fashion bon on the first of two new Louis Vuitton work-
house Gucci, to his French luxury rival, Fran- shops slated to create 1,000 jobs over the next
çois Pinault. Over the next decade, LVMH used five years. (The brand already has two workshops
a stealth tactic common among hedge funds— in California.) “I am not here to judge his types of
cash-settled equity swaps—to secretly acquire policies. I have no political role,” said Arnault to
17% of Hermès, the 182-year-old maker of fine reporters. Still, the event sparked a flash of con-
silk scarves and the iconic Birkin bag. Hermès troversy within his own ranks. Vuitton’s womens- JAMEL TOPPIN FOR FORBES
fought Arnault off in a protracted battle that end- wear artistic director, Nicolas Ghesquière, wrote
ed in 2017 with LVMH relinquishing most of its on Instagram: “I am a fashion designer refusing
Hermès shares. this association #trumpisajoke #homophobia.”

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