Bernard Arnott, The Founder Of LVMH: The Most Investment Businessman In Fashion Circles.

In the face of each shot, Bernard Arnott (Bernard Arnault) shows his gentle and elegant side.

Deep and sexy eyes hide his fascination and insight into art and business.

Known as the "Napoleon of the boutique world", it is the world's largest "luxury kingdom" - the founder and controller of LVMH.

At the age of 68, he still appears frequently in public and keeps his elegant appearance. He is rated as "the best dressed man" by many fashion magazines, and has almost become the Idol of many men and women.

He is also known as "the most investment businessman in the fashion circle, and the investment circle knows best.

The tide man.

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People are familiar with luxury brands Dior, LV, Pu Qi and wine and spirits brand Moet and Chandon, Hennessy...

These are the assets of LVMH group.

The latter is the three largest in the world with Kai Yun group and Li Feng Group.

The group is also the only group that covers five major areas of luxury goods - wine and spirits, fashion and leather goods, perfume and cosmetics, watches and jewellery, and high-end retail groups.

It is understood that Bernard Arnott's wealth is more than that.

In December 19, 2017, Forbes, the famous American business magazine, released the list of the top 10 of the world's billionaires with the largest net asset growth in 2017.

Amazon CEO Geoff Bezos ranked first in the growth of net assets of US $33 billion 800 million, while Bernard Arnott ranked third in net assets growth of US $23 billion 600 million.

It is worth noting that Arnott has gained a lot of wealth from his Dior shares.

The stock has risen 52% since the beginning of this year, and now it is worth 47 billion dollars.

Since 1989, he has been in charge of LVMH. Arnott has started from two brands and has become a LVMH luxury group composed of more than 60 well-known luxury brands. He has a large share in this luxury group.

According to statistics, in the past 30 years, LVMH bought 62 acquisitions in Arnott's hands, holding 74 companies, and selling 48 at the same time.

Unlike the founders of most commercial empires, the LVMH group in Arnott's hands was not created by him.

Some people believe that his success is entirely dependent on his cruel means of mergers and acquisitions, and the adoption of family conflicts is a common mode in his acquisition career.

Especially in gaining control of Dior, Arnott almost relied on naked "robbery".

There is no denying that he is an unfathomable entrepreneur.

Arnott, as always, kept smiling and buying and selling hand in hand. Someone described him as a wolf in a cashmere sweater.

Create

Between the Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue in the center of Manhattan, New York, the LVMH building is towering into the sky.

After the people stopped and looked up, they could not believe that Arnott, who had done a good job in the field of architecture in the early years, would later aim at the luxury empire's rapid layout and head-on March.

Arnott's family has been doing business in architecture.

Influenced by his grandfather, Arnott began to build up business knowledge at the age of seven, and his father, the construction company Ferret-Savinel, was also famous in French architecture.

At the same time, he was born in France and learned another kind of temperament -- the elegant taste of businessmen. The young man showed a fascination with art.

In 1972, Arnott, who graduated from the famous French Polytechnic University of Paris, became an engineer and entered a family business.

By 1981, his business was booming, and later he traveled to the United States and set up Ferret-Savinel branch in Florida.

But he is obsessed with France, which is full of art.

In 1983, Arnott returned to France.

At that time, as the third generation successor of the old Louis Weedon, La Camille, President of LV, found that only relying on the high-end line could not achieve the further expansion of profits, so he decided to merge with MOET & CHANDON (MOET & CHANDON Hennessy), who sold champagne at that time.

After the merger, the cooperation between the two sides was not smooth, and an intermediary was needed to negotiate the conflict. So, La Cami found Arnott, who returned to China, and pulled him in.

At that time, the latter had quietly completed the acquisition of Boussac, a bankrupt department store, including Dior, the most popular clothing and cosmetics brand.

Arnott said frankly that his acquisition of Boussac was Dior. It was because of a conversation with a taxi driver in New York that he lit his idea of buying Dior home. "You are French, I don't know who your president is, but I know that Dior is a famous brand in France."

When he found Arnott, he was also planning a great merger plan: "if we can set up a large group of high-end luxury goods, we can be strong through the synergy among brands."

The weather is favourable.

In October 1987, the French stock market suddenly collapsed, and LVMH shares plunged. Arnott bought 43% of the group's shares at low prices and became the largest shareholder of the company and gained the absolute control of the group.

At that time, LVMH was in the equity struggle, and the collapse of the stock market gave Arnott a good chance.

There are also claims that Arnott is the vice chairman of the LVMH, who is the vice president of Louis Vuitton family, and Camille, the son of the Louis Vuitton family.

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Subsequently, Arnott merged the world-famous leather goods company Louis Weedon and the liquor family MOET & CHANDON Hennessy and set up the LVMH luxury group.

Soon, Arnott began to reform LVMH, a large number of elders were squeezed away, and the structure of liquor, beverage and perfume departments were reorganized.

After the Dior campaign, Arnott's enthusiasm for buying the brand rose. He began to add bricks to the LVMH building.

Since then, the acquisition of brands such as FENDI and KENZO has followed his usual practice: when the economy is in a low ebb or when the company has internal contradictions, it will take advantage of it.

At this point, it can be said that Arnott's acquisition almost never missed.

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Failure

Arnott is keen and keen on acquisition. "Whenever he sees a beautiful brand, he wants to get it in his pocket."

Its acquisition method has been summed up as "simple and direct" three step method:

The first step is to focus on the recession.

The second step is to buy and sell "freely" after the acquisition, sell it at a moderate and appropriate time, and reintegrate through "buying cheap and selling expensive", so that its sub brand will always maintain high yield.

In the third step, Arnott has a unique vision in selecting designers for brands.

For example, after LV became the pronoun of "Lao Qi Jie Bao", he resolutely appointed the cutting-edge designer Mark Jakob as the creative director of the company. He designed the graffiti bag with the full name of LV, and put the old noble of LV into modern life.

But Arnott did not win the prize.

What is dramatic is the entanglement between Arnott and his biggest rival, Gucci.

Arnott had "incorporated" the idea of ancient relaxation, but he wanted to get the maximum benefit at the lowest cost.

In January 1999, LVMH acquired 34% of Gucci's shares and became a major shareholder of Gu Chi.

Arnott hoped to achieve the goal of killing two birds with one stone by holding Gu Chi: on the one hand, to control the ancient relaxation at a low cost, thereby restraining the strong competition of Gu Chi, and on the other hand, obtaining considerable profits from this investment.

Gucci, which is constrained by LVMH, is naturally not reconciled. Gu Chi CEO CEO has asked for LVMH to buy Gu Chi in an all round way.

The damaged Gucci shareholders sold 42% of the total share capital to $3 billion for sale to Arnott's French compatriot company PPR, attempting to upset the situation and forced Arnott to give up the control that he had just arrived with diluted capital.

In the end, Arnott appealed to the court to request an investigation into the increase in capital and stock expansion of CEO, which was more than two years ago.

The appeal failed, and PPR found it cheap.

The setback was Arnott's first big defeat in the process of building luxury empire.

In addition to Gucci, there is a sad case.

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When Chevalier took charge of MOET & CHANDON Hennessy group in 1980s, Chevalier bought 15% of Hermes.

After the merger of MOET & CHANDON Hennessy and LV, share ownership is owned by LVMH.

Later, Hermes decided to go to the market to ask Arnott to buy back the shares.

At that time, Arnott was busy restructuring LVMH and adjusting its development direction, and agreed to sell the 15% stake.

However, the French stock market regulatory authorities issued a ticket of up to 8 million euros for LVMH, because LVMH concealed no information at all stages of the increase in Hermes shares and seriously violated the rules of public information disclosure in a row.

But since then, Arnott has continued to buy Hermes shares and raised his shareholdings to 23.2%.

In 2014, under the mediation of the Paris commercial court, LVMH agreed to give up most of the Hermes shares and will not buy them in the next 5 years.

Under the settlement agreement, the LVMH controlled by Arnott will distribute the Hermes shares to its shareholders, while the Christian group Dior, the largest shareholder of LVMH group, will hand over these Hermes shares to its shareholders.

Arnott's family holding company, Groupe Arnault, will still hold about 8.5% of the shares of Hermes Arnault.

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Secret

Through continuous trading strategy, Arnott spent nearly 20 years to mold LVMH into the global luxury goods industry.

Although all these brands are not built by Arnott, he knows more than anyone how to maximize the value of these brands, thanks to his sensitive artistic nerve.

After realizing that monotony and high price positioning were not suitable for the younger generation, Arnott began inviting avant-garde designers as creative directors.

For example, in 1997, Arno hired Mark Jakob, an avant-garde designer from New York, to be the creative director of the company. After studying the history of LV, Jacob invented a series of unique designs with modern flavor to make LV bags more competitive.

Subsequently, LV began to use public relations gimmick, signing with celebrities and other means to create influence.

LV spent $150 million in renovations in the exclusive store in Paris, and built a scaffolding with two LV cases on the outside of the store. This scaffold has become a huge advertisement with remarkable results.

The most effective way is the scarcity of manufacturing, and the company limited the introduction of high priced products every quarter.

A $5550 handbag was first sold in exclusive stores in Fifth Avenue, New York, and consumers in London and New York had to wait for months to get this kind of handbag.

The purpose of this handbag is not to make money, but to arouse people's admiration.

Celine's brand reengineering is Arnott's most brilliant achievement.

Under his operation, Celine has become the flagship luxury brand of LVMH LVMH from the two or three line brand.

Before the acquisition, Celine was a company that started children's clothing. After the acquisition, Arnott handed it to American designer Mike Karl.

2008 years later, designer Phebe Philo took control of the power. In less than a year, she launched a big hot handbag.

It has become the benchmark brand of women's fashion.

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Arnott's success also owes to his precise opening of emerging markets such as China and India.

When the luxury goods industry came to China in the early 90 'twentieth Century, there was hardly any market. Today, the Chinese people almost hold up half of the luxury consumption.

And when the first tier cities had long been unable to satisfy his appetite, Arnott began to expand to the two or three tier cities.

Its brilliance lies in the fact that after making full pot in China, it pioneered the opening of the India market.

In addition to being a capital manipulator, Arnott is also a top brand operator.

Many people do not know Arnott himself, but they are attracted by the French culture pmitted by LVMH group, which means the perfect combination of elegant artistic temperament and high quality.

Arnott once revealed his secret to control the brand: "the establishment of luxury brands is much more difficult than other businesses. It needs to create a consumer demand that does not exist at all. To fashion luxury brands, we must follow a formula: by mining the history of the brand and interpreting it with suitable designers, we can define the brand identity; strictly control the brand quality and sales; ingeniously create momentum and attract eyeballs".

Succession

Arnott owns almost all of LVMH's shares, making the company full of family colors.

And as Arnott grew older, discussions about Arnott's succession took place.

But Arnott himself does not seem to want to retire from the curtain. He has publicly declared that his goal is to keep LVMH under the control of the Arnott family. His son Anthony and his daughter Delphine were educated like him when he was a child. He would be treated like his grandfather.

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While his children felt no pressure for their father's work, they began to passively contact business as a child.

When Arnott fought for LVMH ownership in 1989, he told Anthony, then 12 years old, the story of the commercial war.

Meanwhile, Arnott insisted on taking his children to the store every Saturday morning.

Anthony recalls his childhood: "he (Arnott) often tells us that if we want to work with him, we must work harder than others and behave better in school."

For this reason, Arnott spent two years learning investment. He once worked as a sales assistant for 3 months at LV store in Champs Elysees.

These are what Arnott looked forward to and laid the foundation for their future succession.

Some analysts say that Delphine, who was born in 1975, is more promising to become Arnott's successor. Arnott also appreciates her achievements in the promotion of LVMH brand.

Public information shows that Delphine's background is extremely rich. He has both the background of further studies in business school, EDHEC business school in Paris and London Business School, and his work experience in McKinsey Co.

Compared to Anthony, she had the advantage of only 4 years and became the only female member in the board of directors, enjoying a high reputation in the company.

"I feel lucky to be a product created by my father."

Delphine easily persuaded Arnott in an advertising dispute.

Arnott's second wife is a French Canadian mixed blood painter, who has 3 children. The biggest Alessandro is Arnott's new object to visit the family company. Although he is only 18 years old, he has shown a strong interest in joining LVMH.

The experience of the United States has not changed Arnott's feelings about blood relations. He has built up a brand in an almost extreme way. In fact, it is also purifying and maintaining a pure "brand DNA".

At present, Arnott's management team and family strategy are working well. He hopes that three younger sons can join in their own businesses one after another.

But when asked who will take the place of the most suitable family successor, Arnott never mentioned a person's name, "do not always bring the conspiracy theory in the family business, the Arnott family is much smarter than others."

He said he would never retire voluntarily at any time. He had 20 to 25 years to plan for the future.

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