When pop star Katy Perry performed clad in jeweller Tiffany’s signature shade of robin egg blue at the reopening of the New York flagship store last year, Alexandre Arnault was offstage — but behind the scenes he was front and centre.
The third child of LVMH’s billionaire chief executive Bernard Arnault, Alexandre had, as second-in-command at the US company, been working on its turnaround since the luxury group bought it for $15.8bn following laborious negotiations in 2021.
This week the group announced the 32-year-old would take on a new role as deputy chief executive of Moët Hennessy, the €293bn group’s wines and spirits business, working alongside veteran LVMH chief financial officer Jean-Jacques Guiony, who will become chief executive.
“The idea is Alexandre would be a very close second,” a person familiar with the matter said. “This would give him additional experience in managing a mini-LVMH, that is to say a portfolio of brands.”
Guiony, a 62-year-old former Lazard M&A banker who has spent two decades piloting LVMH’s finances, is also expected to play a pivotal role in revitalising a division that is under pressure from falling sales of cognac and champagne in key markets including China and the US.
But the plan is for him eventually to hand leadership to Alexandre, according to people familiar with the matter.
“The impression is that it is a transition, in which Guiony will accompany Alexandre” before handing over, said Jean Danjou, luxury analyst at Oddo BHF.
The reshuffle at the top of LVMH has shone a spotlight on Alexandre’s trajectory at the world’s biggest luxury group.
All five Arnault children have moved into increasingly prominent operational roles while an older generation of executives close to their 75-year-old father is taking a step back — fuelling speculation in boardrooms and cocktail parties across Paris over succession.
The shift comes at a testing time for the industry, which was already dealing with slowing growth and now faces the possibility of tariffs under the incoming Trump administration.
Delphine Arnault, 49, is a member of the executive committee and chief executive of Dior, the group’s biggest brand after Louis Vuitton, and Antoine, 47, is chief executive of holding company Christian Dior SE through which the family controls LVMH as well as being in charge of image and sustainability across the group.
Frédéric, 30, was promoted to run LVMH’s watchmaking division at the start of the year and joined the board alongside Alexandre in April. Jean, the youngest at 26 and the only Arnault child yet to join the board, leads Louis Vuitton’s watch business.
With a sharp eye for marketing and an enviable Rolodex of celebrity contacts, Alexandre oversaw the multimillion-dollar refurbishment of Tiffany’s flagship store, which is now the group’s top-selling outlet.
He was also behind campaigns featuring music royalty Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and another featuring the slogan “Not your mother’s Tiffany”, as part of efforts to elevate and modernise its image.
Four years at luggage maker Rimowa also gave him experience in the fashion and leather goods division, the group’s biggest, helping transform it from a serviceable German brand to a fashion set must-have.
LVMH does not disclose Tiffany’s sales figures. However, analysts at HSBC estimate that the brand’s sales have grown from just under $4.4bn in 2019, before the deal, to €5.4bn ($5.8bn) in 2023.
Watch and jewellery revenues group-wide fell 3 per cent on an organic basis in the first nine months of this to €7.5bn amid persistent market weakness, particularly in China and, for Tiffany, among US aspirational shoppers. Tiffany is now the fourth-biggest contributor to earnings among the group’s roughly 100 brands, according to HSBC.
The younger Arnault leaves the jeweller partway as it continues to transform itself from a purveyor of silver and mid-market engagement rings to a high-end jeweller that aims to compete with the likes of Richemont’s Cartier — a process that will be a 10-year project, according to Danjou at Oddo, and that financiers close to the group have said will require billions in investment.
Guiony had been expected to take a step back in his next role after he named his successor, deputy Cécile Cabanis, in June. However this is not the first time Arnault has relied on one of his trusted executives to take on a new challenge.
Sidney Toledano, 73, has been running LVMH’s fashion group — which includes brands such as Céline, Loewe and Givenchy — behind the scenes, despite having formally handed the reins to former Louis Vuitton chief Michael Burke in February.
However, when Burke had to pull back for personal reasons, Toledano was drafted back in, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
For Guiony, the change makes sense: beside his long experience in the group, he is a wine connoisseur and has quietly chaired LVMH’s Vins d’Exception alongside his CFO duties, which owns the group’s most exclusive producers including Château Cheval Blanc and Clos des Lambrays.
Alexandre was also involved in this aspect of the business and worked closely on it with Guiony, taking a personal interest and building relationships in key winemaking regions such as Burgundy, the people said.
Moët Hennessy is far from being the group’s biggest division but it houses key brands ranging from Hennessy cognac to Veuve Clicquot champagne and has more recently been under pressure following several years of strong growth.
Sales fell 8 per cent on an organic basis in the first nine months of the year, the sharpest decline in the group, due to falling demand for cognac and champagne after a pandemic-era boom.
The re-election of President Donald Trump in the US could present an additional challenge to recovery if he follows through on threats to levy tariffs on European exports and even steeper ones on China.
Alexandre may have some cachet with the president-elect that could benefit the group. He “is a young man on the move, the son of one of the great businessmen and leaders in Europe, and in the world,” Trump wrote on X after a dinner with Alexandre and his wife at Mar-a-Lago last year.
Outgoing Moët Hennessy chief executive Philippe Schaus is viewed as having managed the division well through the market downturn — launching new products and doing deals such as its 2022 acquisition of Napa Valley winemaker Joseph Phelps Vineyards — but now “there is a subject of renewal and recovery that Alexandre and Jean-Jaques will take on”, said one of the people close to the group.
“There is a fundamental reflection that will need to be had on the Chinese market, especially for cognac,” said Oddo’s Danjou, although he believes the downturn is spirits is “largely cyclical”.
He added: “Many investors think Alexandre wanted the opportunity to lead something bigger within the group, and this is a transition so that he can do that in time.”