Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault has been married twice. His second wife, Helene Mercier is a pianist. He has two children from his first marriage, and three from his second.

He was born as Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault on 5 March 1949, in Roubaix, France as the son of Jean Leon Arnault. His father was a manufacturer who owned a civil engineering company, Ferret-Savinel.

He attended Maxence Van Der Meersch High School in Roubaix. After completing his schooling he entered the prestigious École Polytechnique and graduated with a degree in engineering in 1971.

He joined his father’s company after graduating from college. He started planning for the company’s expansion and growth and in 1976 he was successful in convincing his father to liquidate the construction division of the company and invest the proceeds in a more lucrative business.

The Arnaults received 40 million French francs from the liquidation of the construction division which they invested in real estate business, which was then a booming sector. Now renamed Ferinel, the company became a very successful one with a specialty in holiday accommodation.

Bernard Arnault became the director of company development in 1974, and was named the CEO in 1977. He succeeded his father as president of the company in 1979.

The French Socialists came to power in 1981, forcing Arnault and his family to move to the United States. Being the astute businessman that he was, he prospered there too, developing condominiums in Palm Beach, Florida. Eventually he began to build a U.S. branch of his family’s property business.

The political scenario in his native France changed in 1983. The French Socialists switched to a more conservative economic course and Arnault decided to return home.

Bernard Arnault’s takeover of the luxury goods conglomerate LVMH was a highly ambitious one. He displayed his characteristic determination and ruthlessness in the systematic and well-calculated takeover of the company, and his successful integration of various famous aspirational brands into the group has inspired several other fashion companies throughout the world to do the same.