Bernard Arnault, the founder and CEO of the luxury powerhouse LVMH, saw his wealth drop by nearly $10 billion in a single day following a swift 7% drop in his company's share price after it posted an unexpected fall in third-quarter sales.
In a trading update on Tuesday, the luxury conglomerate—whose brands include Moet & Chandon, Louis Vuitton, and Tiffany & Co.—posted a 3% drop in its sales in the third quarter of 2024 to €19.1 billion ($21 billion), causing shares to tumble.
Arnault was worth an estimated $190 billion before the posting, but he’s since seen $8 billion wiped from his net worth.
It’s a far cry from the start of 2024, when Arnault was the world’s richest person. In March, his wealth peaked at an all-time high of $231 billion. However, his fortune has been in free fall ever since thanks to dwindling sales at LVMH.
Just last month, the French tycoon plummeted to the fifth-richest person in the world after a 20% drop in his company’s stock price resulted in a $54 billion cut of his net worth. And in May of this year, he similarly experienced an $11.2 billion loss when LVMH’s shares dropped by 5%.
But don’t feel too sorry for Arnault: Despite the latest wipeout, the 75-year-old still has $182 billion to his name, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index .
LVMH did not immediately respond to Fortune 's request for comment.
What’s happening at LVMH?
During the first half of 2024, LVMH reported a modest dip in revenues , but its wine and spirits divisions fared even worse .
“Maybe the current global situation, be it geopolitical or macroeconomic, doesn’t lead people to cheer up and open bottles of champagne,” Jean-Jacques Guiony, LVMH’s chief financial officer, said during the company’s earnings call in late July. “I don’t really know. The matter of fact is, is that our volumes are down double digits.”
This time around, the luxury giant blamed weak spending among Chinese consumers for the unexpected fall in third-quarter sales and warned of an “uncertain economic and geopolitical environment.”
In a call with investors, Guiony said it still remains unclear whether the Chinese government’s recent stimulus measures “will be sufficient or not” to drive up spending in the region, according to MarketWatch .
What’s more, sales at LVMH’s core fashion and leather goods division, which is seen as a bellwether for the luxury sector, fell 5%—marking the first time the division has recorded falling sales since 2020, during the pandemic.
How did Bernard Arnault make his fortune?
In 1971, Arnault kick-started his career by working at his father’s real estate company, where he proved he had an entrepreneurial mind from a young age: A 25-year-old Arnault convinced his father to sell the construction side of the business and shift its focus to property.
Arnault got his big break by putting up $15 million from that sale to buy the luxury-goods company that owned the fashion brand Christian Dior, Boussac Saint-Frères, in 1984.
Following the acquisition, the billionaire fired 9,000 people working for the company, sold off most of the group’s assets (except the Dior brand), and earned the nickname “the Terminator.”
But his tough approach worked: By 1987, the company started making profits, reportedly generating $112 million in earnings from a revenue stream of $1.9 billion.
In the same year, he partnered with Alain Chevalier, CEO of Moët Hennessy, and Henry Racamier, president of Louis Vuitton, to form LVMH—and the rest is history.
Today, LVMH has some 75 luxury brands in its portfolio and, under Arnault’s leadership, has grown to become the largest company (by market capitalization) in Europe.
Earlier this year, the Paris-headquartered conglomerate became the first European company ever to cross $500 billion in market valuation, and Arnault’s wealth—which is largely tied to LVMH’s shares, including a 97.5% stake in Dior—topped $200 billion for the first time.
His five ultrawealthy children , all of whom work at LVMH brands, are vying to one day take over his luxury empire.
But Arnault senior has shown no sign of slowing down: He forced his board to extend the retirement age for its chairman and CEO from 75 to 80 so he could stay longer.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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