Bernard Arnault

“I remember people telling me, it doesn't make sense to put together so many brands, and it was a success. It was a recognized success, and for the last 10 years now, every competitor is trying to imitate. I think they are not successful, but they'll try.”

“He starts buying into LVMH, I think, in 1987, and has complete control by 1989, I think. Let's go back to the beginning of the book to make sure I'm right. Yeah. Friday, January, 13th, January 1989.”

“My relationship to luxury goods is really very rational. It is the only area in which it is possible to make luxury profit margins.”

“Arnold said he wanted to make LVMH the biggest luxury goods group in the world.”

“Immediately, he transformed Dior Couture into a holding company, allocated its stake in LVMH, and offered the capital to the holding company, and offered the capital of the holding company to private investors. Why did he do that? Because this brought Bernard …”

“Bernard targets Boussac because he wants Dior. That is the first in a chain of events that's going to eventually lead him to overtaking and taking over LVMH.”

“People had to prove themselves before they won Arnault's confidence. They had to be good, and they had to know how to stand up to him when they were sure of their case.”

“I think in a couple of years from now on the acquired episode, they said he was within like two or three years, took a failing asset and wind up producing like a hundred million in, in cashflow.”

“Bernard is like this odd combination of, I would say Warren Buffett and a John D. Rockefeller.”

“If you have a powerful brand, all these other things can be fixed.”

“After all, companies that are in ruins hold the greatest surprises and bring the greatest profits if they can be pulled around. All you have to do is delve into them deeper than anyone else and work on them without leaving anything to chance.”

“He has this rare combination of he's intolerant of slowness, and he has an unbelievably long-term view that I think is very, has been beneficial.”

“At the time, it looked expensive. What looked expensive was actually unbelievably cheap, and no one saw it but Arnall.”

“Instead of having the majority that is 51% of your money and of capital and company A. It is better to have 51% in a purely financial company B, which itself then holds 51% of company A. One therefore also has control of company A by dividing the initial capit…”

“Nobody realized that he was married. He did not wear a wedding ring, and he kept his own counsel. The day his daughter was born, not even his own secretary knew about it. He believed in extreme discretion.”

“Politics is ephemeral. Companies have a durability which guarantee the only real power worth having.”

“What is important to me or to the story rather is if you are the one with cash time is your friend, right? These guys own this company, but it's, they're just getting drained constantly. They have pressure from the fresh government, French government to figure…”

“By the time I'm 70, I'll have retired long since, he says.”

“He targets timeless brands that have proven themselves in different economic cycles and through changes in consumer preferences, even though LVMH may be 3040 years old, whatever it is, some of their brands are hundreds of years old.”

“Boussac's business is the business that a young Bernard Arnal buys. I think he's like, 35 years old at the time.”