Published an anecdote about a millionaire Telegramhis friend and advisor Jean-Noël Tassez commented to him on the way home from dinner in Saint-Tropez: “Bernard, you look a little sad.” “I won’t be truly happy unless I’m the richest man in the world,” the millionaire replied. Bernard Arnault enjoyed the joy of realizing his dream for at least six months of the year. Now this dream has turned into a nightmare.

The man in charge of luxury brand conglomerate LVMH kicked off 2024 as the richest person on the planet, surpassing Elon Musk. The second half of the year was not a good one for the French luxury mogul. In recent months, their company’s shares have not stopped losing value, resulting in the loss of assets worth 100,000 TL. 52 billion dollars.

2024: annus horribilis by Arnault

The estimated worth of the millionaire responsible for brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy, Tiffany & Co or Moët & Chandon at the end of March 2024 was: $239 billionAccording to Forbes millionaires list. This wealth put him ahead of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison.

The reality of a French millionaire today is very different. He is the only millionaire in the 100 million club who can end the year with a capital loss compared to January 2024. The remaining members of this select club are making profits between 14,000 and 63,000 million so far this year.

Arnault’s fortune is estimated to be as follows: approximately 187 billion dollars. This leaves us with a total of $52 billion that evaporated in just seven months. Uncertain economic forecasts and a decline in luxury goods sales before the summer, as noted, caused the group’s shares to begin a gradual decline in price. Expansion.

As published LuckShares of the LVMH group have fallen by around 16% in recent months and have shown a slight recovery in recent days (they recorded a decline of 19.20% in the last six months). Bernard Arnault remains the group’s main shareholder with a 48% stake, so the fate of his fortune and his luxury fashion empire go hand in hand.

Luxury is falling

The group’s poor financial results began with a modest decline in LVMH’s second quarter results; In this decline, the company decreased its profit by 1% compared to the same period of the previous year. However, the wine and spirits industry had a bad year, posting an estimated loss of 12%.

“Perhaps the current global situation, be it geopolitical or macroeconomic, does not lead people to cheer up and open champagne bottles. I really don’t know. The fact is that our volumes are in double digits,” says Jean-Jacques Guiony. LVMH financial director during the presentation of the company’s results at the end of July.

LVMH is not the only company in the industry recording poor results. According to a recent report from Bank of America, 2024 will be a year of decline in the luxury industry. The bad news for Arnault is that this trend will continue until 2025, according to the American financial institution. This trend shows that the French boss’s losses may still increase in the last quarter of the year.

Despite the poor results of his main asset, Bernard Arnault did not allow himself to be discouraged and continued to diversify his investments. It recently approximately closed the acquisition of the Bauer Hotel in Venice from the Signa group. 275 million eurosaccordingly Bloomberg. Luck It was announced that the millionaire also purchased the French weekly Paris Match magazine for 120 million euros.

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Image | Wikimedia Commons (Jérémy Barande)