Bernard Arnault, (born March 5, 1949, Roubaix, France), French
businessman best known as the chairman and CEO of the French
conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, the largest
luxury-products company in the world.Arnault graduated from the École
Polytechnique in Paris with a degree in engineering. In 1971 he took
control of his father’s construction firm Ferret-Savinel. Eight years
later he changed the company’s name to Férinel Inc. and shifted its
focus to real estate.With $15 million of his own money, Arnault,
together with Antoine Bernheim, a managing partner of the French bank
Lazard Frères and Co., raised the $80 million necessary to purchase
Boussac Saint-Frères, a bankrupt textile company that owned the fashion
house of Christian Dior. Then, in 1987, Arnault was invited to invest in
LVMH by the company’s chairman, Henri Racamier. Investing through a
joint venture with Guinness PLC, Arnault ousted Racamier in 1990 and
started to sweep a slew of fashion companies into the LVMH fold:
Christian Lacroix, Givenchy, and Kenzo; the leather goods companies
Loewe, Céline, and Berluti; the jeweler Fred Joailler; the DFS group
(the world’s biggest duty-free chain); and the beauty retailer Sephora.
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