NOTHING BUT THE BEST

Luxury brand owner Bernard Arnault has beaten fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos to become the world's richest man

- MAXINE PETERS

IN A sprawling penthouse suite in one of Paris’ swankiest business districts is the office of a man who’s been dubbed the Wolf in Cashmere. And he’s unashamed of it. Bernard Arnault, head of luxury giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, has an insatiable hunger to own every top fashion house and luxury brand in the world.

His company already has 75 of the planet’s sparkliest brands under its umbrella, including Dior, Fenty Beauty and Tiffany & Co, but Bernard won’t stop until he has them all. And it’s this drive to be No 1 that’s made him the newly crowned richest man in the world, knocking Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos – the tech titans who lobbed the top spot between them for years – off the throne. 

The 74-year-old is worth a jaw-dropping $230 billion (R4,14 trillion). He’s the first European to rise to the top of the rich list – and it’s the rich and the brand-conscious Bernard has made his bucks off.

Despite a global economic downturn and the chaos wrought by Covid, the wealthy have shown they still want all the fancy things money can buy – a magnum of 1985 Dom Pérignon Rosé champagne here, a glitzy Givenchy gown there, the finest TAG Heuer watch flashing on a wrist.

And what the customer wants, LVMH can provide – at a hefty price tag, of course.

Although the business took a hard knock in the early days of the pandemic, the share price has shot up more than 150% in the past three years, and the silklined pockets of Bernard’s bespoke suits have grown deeper and deeper.

Yet for the French tycoon, his business is about a lot more than brand names.