Who Will Bernard'S Next Acquisition Target Be?

In every core area of every international metropolis, we can always see LV's flagship store. This is the international purchasing and buying team represented by China and the Japanese. Because we have one. LV The bag is the dream of countless women.

Behind LV is the LVMH group (France's LV MOET & CHANDON Hennessy group), which also owns many women's dream brands, such as Dior , Givenchy Fendi, Hoya and so on.

LVMH group was founded in 1987 by LV, a world-famous leather goods company, combined with MOET & CHANDON family, Hennessy. After more than 20 years of operation, Bernard Arnaud group has developed into the largest boutique group in the world with 56000 employees and more than 50 luxury brands.

LVMH has a total assets of up to 33 billion euros. Arnaud owns 47.5% of the company and is the largest individual shareholder of LVMH. In 2012, Arnaud had about $41 billion in assets, ranking fourth in the world's richest list, the first in the European rich list, and tenth in the 2013 Forbes global billionaires list.

Arnaud and LVMH group, driven by Arnaud's ambitious ambition, built up the luxuries empire through one commercial battle after another. Arnaud himself was called "the wolf in cashmere sweater".

The middle families from the North

In 1949, Bernard Arnaud was born in a small and medium-sized industrial family in northern France. Father Jean Arnaud was a descendant of the officer and ran a construction company. The company was founded by his father-in-law, the little Bernard's grandfather.

In his autobiography, Bernard described his childhood as "always very happy without any special trouble". He lived around his grandparents all year round, and his grandparents lived a frugal, regular and quiet life. In contrast, the parents living on the same street enjoyed life, built their own swimming pools at home, and the houses were covered with famous paintings. Mother did not go home to be a housewife, like most women at that time, but chose to remain in the workplace in order to maintain her independence. Mother obviously seldom participated in Bernard's growth. His grandfather took a little Bernard to run the site and teach him to do business.

My grandfather died when Bernard died at the age of ten. Enjoying her grandmother's undisguised preference, Bernard grew up and graduated from Paris Polytechnic University. He said he was a regular child in school. Indeed, he was never interested in the entertainment places that young people loved to go to.

After graduating from college, Bernard had chosen the road for himself: entering family business. The students were surprised that they should not choose a more scenic road (such as gaining power and glory in state-owned enterprises) instead of going to a small business without fame.

Bernard's goal has long been decided. He wants to be president and realize his dream on that stage.

The instinct of making money

Bernard entered the family business as an engineer. He soon favored his grandmother to share some of his shares with him. Under the reluctance of his father, he gradually gained the real power.

He persuaded his father to sell the thin, risky industrial buildings and public affairs department, retaining only the high profit real estate distribution industry and the newly built private housing and apartments. This important event has actually changed the strategic direction of family businesses, and more importantly, changed the strength comparison between him and his father in the enterprise.

Family business is booming, and Bernard is optimistic about the development of leisure and holiday housing. In the process of developing the emerging market, he discovered a more valuable market through close contact with bankers and others: selling good things to rich people.

Bernard was unwilling to be a building businessman and a real estate developer. He wanted to make more profitable businesses.

After Mitterrand won the presidential election, many entrepreneurs worried that the economic environment would get worse, including Bernard, who chose to take refuge in the United States. At that time, President Reagan's liberal reform had just begun, and it was the golden age for Europeans to invest in the United States.

Bernard is very cautious in the United States and has launched several real estate projects, but he has lost all the money. He gradually clarified his ideas: to reoccupy the French market, to find a famous brand, to have potential for development, and not to have too many staff members at the same time.

Luxury Empire first battle

In the spring of 1984, Pierre Gold, the most important partner in Bernard's life, told him that he had already identified a goal: a huge listed company, the group of 30 thousand, who had a very bad reputation, was about to go bankrupt, and had a regular strike.

Bernard immediately launched a covert investigation of bush. In addition to having the gold lettered signboard of Dior, the confusion in the battle is entirely due to political chaos and ineffective politicians.

Bernard decided to shoot. He first visited Antoine Bernard of the bank and persuaded the banker to win his support through "super intelligence and boundless ambition".

Then he tried to buy nearly 130 thousand shares from the original shareholder. There is still a lot of money missing. Antoine Bernard also helped him find 2 oil groups and British HSBC, and Bernard himself found a mysterious Lebanese financial company, making up a total of 400 million francs.

In order to make up for Bernard's natural defects as a Real Estate Company boss who was not familiar with the textile industry, he invited Charrier, a textile expert, to be a consultant at a high price.

All trump cards are in hand. Bernard made the final sprint: writing to the new prime minister to express his commitment to the continuation and employment of the former group company and the empty check made by the state in the way of abandoning the creditor's rights. Bernard's plan finally became the most persuasive force in the battle for fat meat.

Bernard won. He spent only 400 million francs to buy the stock group and became president, and the value of the company will reach 8 billion francs in 3 years.

One battle after another

After controlling Bernard, he calculated the debts of the group's 3 billion 600 million francs and launched a series of asset sales. Many small companies with small profits sold them and then proposed a proposal to reduce their debts. Finally, the debt to be repaid is only 1 billion 700 million francs, compared with 5 billion francs of the group's total assets.

Bernard soon re listed all his companies. The market smelled the smell of money and bought it. Soon, the stock price of the buk group rose.

However, large groups will naturally encounter various obstacles. It is said that one of Bernard's friends caught a man on the train talking about everything they did behind Bernard. After hearing of this, Bernard launched a reasonable strategy of intelligence collection at the right time and perfected in the next few years. This strategy used various legal or not legal means to collect economic information and intelligence, and played an extremely important role in his subsequent campaign.

Bernard also has to shoulder the responsibility of finding the best fashion designer. He spent three times higher wages and other tempting conditions to pick up the brilliant French design star Christian lalouwar, who was rude and impolite. The companies that had been dug up were angry and angry and took them to court for "unfair competition". Bernard and Clark were sentenced to pay 10 million francs for each other.

Bernard is confident that he will support all his designs and new products. But llaowa's return to Bernard is a succession of failures. His brilliant work in the design industry has suffered a continuous cold reception in the market, causing huge losses to the group.

Bernard didn't care about that. As he continued to sell the assets of the stock, he quickly produced 1 billion 600 million francs in his pocket. Immediately after that, he also disposed of the shares of his stock, and he had no factory in his name, and his total assets rose to 4 billion francs. The Bush group closed in 1988 due to a loss of 189 million francs. It was less than four years from Bernard's pledge to promise the prime minister to revive the Bush group.

Ultimate goal: LVMH group

In 1987, Bernard was not closed, and a grand 40th anniversary celebration was held for Dior. People whisper, Bernard Arnaud is going to buy MOET & CHANDON Hennessy. The group originally owned Dior's perfume business.

MOET & CHANDON Hennessy was led by a paid boss, Chevalier. He made a lot of contributions to the development and expansion of the enterprise. When he heard that the company might be caught up in other acquisitions, in order to find an alliance as soon as possible, MOET & CHANDON Hennessy hastily decided to merge with Louis Vuitton, and the LVMH group was born.

The merger brought endless sequelae. The eldest of the two companies often quarrelled with what color should be used for stationery. When the global stock market crashed in October 1987, the value of the LVMH group shrank by 40%. At this time, Bernard Arnaud began buying LVMH shares.

When LV's boss, La karmeyer, sought Bernard's capital injection, Bernard already had a LVMH3% stake. Taking advantage of the fact that the two eldest men were not seeing each other, Bernard succeeded in obtaining the trust of La karmeyer and prepared to open up 30% of the LVMH group's shares.

But bankers told him that a public takeover would be risky. Bernard immediately turned to cooperate with MOET & CHANDON Hennessy boss and forgot that he had just reached a friendly agreement with LV boss.

When LV boss found himself betrayed, everything was irrevocable. Bernard's owned financial company began to buy LVMH shares in the stock market, and they robbed more than 10% of group capital under the eyes of traders. In July 1988, Bernard announced that he had controlled 20% of LVMH group's capital and 28% of its stock in the form of stock subscription bonds. In September, he got a 29.4% stake in the group.

Then, everyone was surprised to see Bernard announcing that he had elected his father and let Arnaud be the chairman of the board of supervisors. Bernard Arnaud's battle for LVMH is at the end of the battle. Of course, Bernard continued to consolidate the result of the battle. In January of next year, he successfully boarded the chairman of the board. And the details can only be described as "natural killer" to describe Bernard's fighting style.

Losing Arnaud's heart ache

Although Arnaud has stepped forward, the business empire has expanded again and again, but victory will not always care for the same person.

Over the years, Italy's luxury brand GUCCI has always been a strong rival of LVMH. Arnaud has long wanted to put this famous brand in the bag, but according to Arnaud's consistent style, he will find ways to get the best benefit at the lowest cost.

Beginning in January 5, 1999, Arnaud began buying Gu Chi's stock, buying 100 thousand shares first, holding more than 5%, reaching the requirements of the United States and Holland Securities Regulatory Commission, and then buying it again on January 12th, 16, and 25, until LVMH's share had risen to 34.4%.

In just 20 days, LVMH bought a large share of the Gucci group at a cost of $1 billion 400 million. The process was very successful, and the Gucci group did not respond at all. Because Arnaud used the loopholes in the Holland securities regulatory law, that is, the acquirers do not have to submit detailed acquisition plans to all shareholders.

When the ancient relaxation reaction came, it had lost its freedom. Faced with this helpless situation, Gu Chi CEO asked for LVMH to buy Gu Chi. Arnaud refused. The reason is simple: all acquisitions cost a lot of money. The most common practice of Arnaud is to hold shares, and at least the funds can reach the purpose of controlling the other party.

Gu Chi is really a company with personality. He is not resigned to being controlled like this. The management decides to use poison pill plan to dilute Arnaud's stock. Gucci expanded its capital and sold 42% of its total share capital to US $3 billion for Arnott's French compatriot company PPR, making PPR the largest shareholder of Gu Chi and diluting the share of LVMH to 20%.

This has annoyed Arnaud. He has never encountered such a hard nut. He decided to sue Gucci, saying that Gucci's actions hurt the interests of shareholders.

In May 27, 1999, the court of Holland made a final decision, saying that the company was not acting properly, but it did not cancel the spanaction between PPR and the company. Arnott was dissatisfied with continuing to sue the Supreme Court of Holland, and applied for the court to set up an investigation team to investigate.

The final result was a agreement between LVMH and Gucci, and LVMH finally agreed to spanfer the shares of Gu Chi group to PPR. In the end, PPR bought Gu Chi brand at the cost of 8 billion 800 million dollars. According to Arnaud's consistent style, it is estimated that this spanaction is also secure.

From 1987 to 2013, LVMH made 63 acquisitions, holding 74 companies and selling 48 companies at the same time. Bernard Arnaud himself became the richest man in France. Nothing seemed to stop Arnaud from grabbing. People are still waiting to see who Bernard will be next acquisition target.