MW Bernard Arnault slides down to world's fifth-richest person after LVMH disappointment

By Steve Goldstein

Bernard Arnault lost a spot in the billionaire rankings after LVMH Moet Hennessy posted results that weren't as strong as some luxury-goods rivals.

Forbes' calculations on billionaires updated on Tuesday has Oracle's Larry Ellison ahead of Arnault, thanks to an $11 billion slide for Arnault and family and a $6 billion gain for the Oracle co-founder.

LVMH (FR:MC) results for the fourth quarter were not a disaster but were not the positive surprise that Richemont (CH:CFR) and Burberry (UK:BRBY) delivered.

LVMH sales were steady in the fourth quarter, at EUR23.93 billion ($24.93 billion), which was a 1% rise organically and actually was stronger than the 1% organic sales decline analysts expected. Wine and spirits organic sales fell by 8%.

But its annual profit fell 17% to EUR12.55 billion, lagging earnings expectations by 14%.

Arnault said 2025 started well. "I mean, it is January, end of January, so let's not anticipate too much, but we have quite a few companies that reported double-digit growth," he said, according to a FactSet-compiled transcript of the analyst call.

Deutsche Bank analysts led by Adam Cochrane reiterated a hold rating after the results.

"These results will challenge the sector narrative that all luxury companies have seen the acceleration in [the fourth quarter] seen by Richemont and Burberry but will reinforce the idea of a sequential recovery and a quicker recovery in 2025 than we expected in October," they said.

LMVH's Paris-listed stock (FR:MC) fell 6% and now is down 9% over the last 52 weeks. Shares of Gucci maker Kering (FR:KER) also fell 6%.

The LVMH results helped drag the French CAC 40 index FR:PX1 down 0.3%.

-Steve Goldstein

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January 29, 2025 04:48 ET (09:48 GMT)

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