Arnault Snaps Up LVMH Shares After Vowing to Own More Than 50%

The day after French billionaire Bernard Arnault vowed to raise his stake in luxury conglomerate LVMH to majority ownership, he hunkered down and started buying.

Europe’s richest individual purchased roughly €100 million of stock on Jan. 28, according to a Paris stock market filing. That came just after Arnault had unveiled 2025 results that disappointed investors and he delivered a downbeat outlook, hitting the share price and handing him his biggest single-day personal wealth loss in dollars of $15 billion. Filings show he’s kept up the pace through holding companies, bringing total purchases through Feb. 4 to some 757,000 shares, worth about €407 million.

The latest spree follows a more sustained run of buying over eight months last year when Arnault also bought the dip. Unlike last year’s purchases, Arnault telegraphed his intent this time around, saying he wasn’t sure it would “please observers,” amid the strong headwinds buffeting the luxury industry and wish to own more than 50 percent of the world’s biggest high-end goods conglomerate that he built up over decades.

“Our family group has about 50 percent of LVMH’s capital and since now we’re at the start of a new year, we’re entitled to acquire a bit more,” he said during the Jan. 27 earnings presentation. “This year we’ll cross the 50 percent threshold. So we’ll own over 50 percent of the share capital. So we believe in what we do, and we’re showing it in that way.”

A representative for the Arnault family didn’t immediately respond to queries about the latest stock purchases.

Arnault has long sought to tighten his control over LVMH, a company he’s headed since 1989 and expanded largely through acquisitions into Europe’s second-biggest firm, with a market value of about €268 billion. The 76-year-old engineer-by-training has also expanded his ownership strategy at the brand level, saying last month that LVMH spent €1 billion to raise its stake in upmarket cashmere specialist Loro Piana to 94 percent from 85 percent.

The Arnault family owned 49 percent of the share capital and 64.8 percent of voting rights in LVMH at the end of 2024, according to the latest annual report. Given this already provides the billionaire ample margin of control over the company, it’s still unclear why he wants to cross the 50 percent threshold.

“It could be symbolic, a sort of cherry on the cake” said Frederic Genevrier, an analyst at AlphaValue. “It’s also a way to project an optimistic message.”

The move has coincided with a decline in LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE’s value and Arnault’s own fortune since a post-pandemic surge in demand for the company’s designer bags and clothes, wines and beauty products waned amid rising economic uncertainty. His wealth is mostly derived from LVMH rather than diversification.

Arnault has a net worth of $181 billion, down from a record $231 billion in March 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Even though the father of five’s fortune is greater than in 2022, when he reached the top of the ranking, subsequent gains among tech billionaires including Elon Musk and Larry Page have pushed him down to the No. 7 spot.

So far this year Arnault has purchased shares through his family’s closely held Financiere Agache and Christian Dior SE, a listed firm whose only activity is owning LVMH shares.

By Tara Patel

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