Bernard Jean Etienne Arnault  is a French businessman, investor and art collector. He is the founder, chairman and CEO of LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods company. Arnault is one of the richest individuals in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$199.7 billion as of September 2024, according to Forbes and US$208 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Biography

Bernard Jean Étienne Arnault was born on 5 March 1949 in Roubaix. His mother, pianist Marie-Josèphe Savinel, daughter of Étienne Savinel, had a "fascination for Dior". His father, manufacturer Jean Léon Arnault, a graduate of École Centrale Paris, owned the civil engineering company Ferret-Savinel.Raised in a "strict Catholic-Auvergne" style by his devoutly Catholic grandmother, Arnault took classical piano lessons as a child and was educated at Catholic schools,the Lycée Maxence Van Der Meersch in Roubaix and the Lycée Faidherbe in Lille, which takes boarders and prepares them for the grandes écoles.

In 1971, he graduated from the École Polytechnique, France's leading engineering school.

Career

In 1971, soon after his graduation, Arnault began work for his father's company. Three years later, after he convinced his father to shift the focus of the company to real estate, Ferret-Savinel sold the industrial construction division and was renamed Ferinel. Following the acquisition of a textile company and relocation of its headquarters, the company renamed the real estate branch to the George V Group. The real estate assets were later sold to Compagnie Générale des Eaux (CGE), eventually becoming Nexity.