Bernard Arnault has a net worth of $188.6 billion.
Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton became the world's richest man with a net worth of $188.6 billion, surpassing Twitter's new boss Elon Musk who ranks second on Forbes list with total net worth of $178.6 billion
Here are 5 points about the French tycoon:
- Bernard Arnault was born in 1949 in northern France and earned an engineering degree from the Ecole Polytechnique. He worked for the Ferret Savinel family firm before relocating to the US in 1981 and starting a career in real estate development, as per LVMH website.
- Mr Arnault returned to France in 1984 and bought Boussac Saint-Freres, the bankrupt textile group that owned Christian Dior. Later, he spun off most of the company's other businesses and used the windfall to purchase a controlling stake in LVMH, which had merged its two main companies, Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy, according to Forbes.
- He transformed LVMH into a luxury group. Louis Vuitton, Sephora and 70 other fashion and beauty businesses are all under Bernard Arnault's direction at the LVMH conglomerate. The group also sells champagne, wine, spirits, fashion, leather goods, watches, jewellery, hotel stays, perfume, cosmetics and has 5,500 stores worldwide, as per LVMH website.
- He has been awarded the honorary titles of Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.
- The 73-year old is not very active on social media. Four of his five children also work in the LVMH empire.
