Bernard Arnault said a wind of optimism is blowing through the US after Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, in contrast to his native France, where the government is seeking to raise corporate taxes and unemployment is increasing.
Bloomberg
“There’s a different mood” between the two countries, the French billionaire told reporters Tuesday on the sidelines of LVMH’s annual results, at one point comparing a return to France to a cold shower.
The 75-year-old luxury mogul could be seen last week standing next to tech billionaires and Argentine President Javier Milei at Trump’s inauguration in Washington. The controlling shareholder of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE attended with his wife Helene and two of his five children, Delphine, 49, and Alexandre, 32.
“Who would refuse an invitation from the US president to attend his inauguration?” Arnault asked, saying he has known every president since Ronald Reagan and has been acquainted with Trump personally for a long time. “Trump was elected with an incredible majority,” he added.
Arnault and Trump have known each other since the French entrepreneur first came to New York in the early 1980s, fleeing a Socialist government in France and seeking to start a real estate business, an endeavor that wasn’t successful.
The ties have endured — Trump last year told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview that Arnault was an “incredible guy, a friend of mine.” LVMH, meantime, generates a quarter of its revenue from the US, which would likely leave the firm vulnerable to any import tariffs Trump might impose on the European Union.
Arnault declined to say whether he’d spoken about the risk of tariffs with Trump since his election.
Investors are hoping the US will be a bright spot for luxury this year to counterbalance the demand downturn in China.
When Trump won his first presidential election eight years ago, Arnault and Alexandre went to congratulate him at Trump Tower shortly after.
In October 2019, Arnault and Trump inaugurated a Louis Vuitton leather goods plant in Texas as Arnault sought to prove his group was also willing to create production jobs in the US. Alexandre was present too, as was Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
Early in 2023, the younger Arnault and his wife attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, with Trump describing the scion as a “young man on the move,” according to a post on his social network Truth Social.
Ivanka has also kept in touch with the younger Arnaults. When Alexandre’s wife Geraldine opened a boutique for her fashion brand last year in New York City, Ivanka attended the event.
The Trumps have favored LVMH fashions at notable events since November, when Melania Trump wore Dior on election day and during the inauguration weekend. Ivanka also wore a Dior outfit and a gown by Givenchy, another LVMH label, during the inauguration celebrations.
Arnault enjoys a prominent role in business and political circles in France. He’s regularly invited to the Elysee Palace when heads of state come to Paris, as happened in May, when China’s Xi Jinping visited. Arnault’s wealth is estimated at $209 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him Europe’s wealthiest person.
Hot on the heels of its strong Christmas trading update, news has emerged that performance and athleisure brand Castore could be mulling a stock exchange listing.
The company has become a major player in the sports and sports-influenced clothing market in just a few short years and an IPO would underline its status as it increasingly competes with major names like Nike and Adidas.
The Times reported Thursday that Castore’s sibling founders Tom and Phil Beaton would consider floating its shares.
“I very much focus my time and energy on building the best brand and business that I can because if we do that there’ll hopefully be some exciting options for us from a capital event — an IPO is one of those options,” said Tom Beahon, who’s co-CEO with his brother.
But it doesn’t look like it will happen just yet (if at all) with Beahon adding: “As a proud British entrepreneur I would love to be able to IPO the business in London but there’s nothing on the immediate cards on that front.”
UK companies haven’t always had a good experience of listing on the stock exchange and can be punished severely by shareholders if they underperform.
A stock exchange listing isn’t to be taken lightly. Apart from the costs involved, it means company problems play out in the full glare of regulatory publicity. There’s a recent history of names such as Superdry, Ted Baker, Quiz, In The Style and more de-listing as their performances declined. And others that remain listed — such as Dr Martens, Burberry, Mulberry, M&S, Frasers Group, THG and JD Sports — can see share prices soaring but have also seen their prices dropping sharply if their sales and profit figures disappoint investors.
But for now, Castore is far from disappointing. The company saw a 16% increase in festive season sales, helped by its various sports team link-ups and also by more women than ever buying into its offer.
The brand was founded only 10 years ago and counts New Look founder Tom Singh and tennis star Andy Murray among its investors.
It has benefited from consumers seeking something different from the big-name sports brands with Beahon saying that “more nascent challenger brands [like On and Hoka] have come into the market. Castore is in that cohort, Gymshark is in that cohort and customers are willing to try new brands that are not the Nike swoosh or the Adidas three-stripe”.
Castore has its own stores but the majority of its revenues are online, although this balance could shift as it opens more physical spaces.
As well as saying it will open between five and 10 stores this year, Beahon said “we will be announcing a number of very large … flagship partnerships this year, both in the UK and internationally. We do see international growth as key to the next stage of Castore’s growth as a business”.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves spelled out her plans to revive the country’s slow-moving economy on Wednesday, adding to recent pledges to reform investment and planning rules with a commitment to back airport expansion at Heathrow.
Below are the key actions the government has announced to remove hurdles to growth since taking power last July:
PLANNING The government plans to limit the number of legal challenges that opponents can bring to slow major infrastructure projects.
At present, even legal challenges deemed to have little chance of success can be brought back to the courts three separate times. New rules are designed to ensure that in the weakest cases only one such challenge can be made.
The current first attempt – known as the paper permission stage – will also be scrapped.
HEATHROW RUNWAY EXPANSION On Wednesday Reeves gave her backing for the construction of a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Successive governments have dithered about expansion of the site in west London, with politicians caught between the need to build more capacity and concerns about pollution and carbon emissions.
Reeves said she wanted permission granted by the end of this parliament, which is due to end in 2029. The head of Heathrow, Thomas Woldbye, said it could be operational by 2035.
OXFORD-CAMBRIDGE CORRIDOR The government will further support the “growth corridor” that exists between the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge by working with industry and local government to speed up the building of homes, laboratories and transport networks, including a direct train line.
The area, which is home to fast-growing companies spun out of the universities and to industry leaders such as AstraZeneca, could add up to 78 billion pounds ($96.8 billion) to the overall economy by 2035 if plans are implemented, industry experts say.
PENSION REFORMS New pension reforms are set to allow the release of what the government calls “trapped” corporate pension surpluses – estimated to be worth more than 100 billion pounds – to be invested in the wider economy.
The government has said legislative changes could enable all defined benefit pension schemes to change their rules to permit the use of such funds where there is trustee-employer agreement.
Reeves also wants to build a slew of “megafunds,” with plans to consolidate about 60 defined contribution pension schemes and 86 Local Government Pension Schemes to make them more cost-efficient and large enough to bankroll ambitious projects.
INVESTMENT Reeves has said the National Wealth Fund and the Office for Investment will work with local leaders to drive regional economic growth by focusing on sectors such as technology, manufacturing and green energy.
HOUSING The government said there would be new mandatory housing targets, including building more homes where housing is least affordable. Local authorities have been tasked with coming up with timetables for new housebuilding plans or else risk intervention from ministers. The measures are part of the government’s efforts to meet a pledge to build 1.5 million new homes in the next five years, including ordering local authorities to build more houses.
REGULATORY RESET The government has urged the country’s regulators, including competition, energy and water, to remove barriers to economic growth, asking them to create a regulatory environment that boosts investment and innovation.
Reeves forced out the chairman of the country’s competition watchdog last week, saying he did not agree with her views on how to speed up Britain’s economy.
FINANCIAL REFORMS Earlier this month, the Bank of England (BoE) delayed the implementation of tougher bank capital rules by a year to January 2027 in order to gain clarity on what the United States will do under Donald Trump as president.
In October, the BoE proposed moving to a five-year bonus deferral period for all senior managers, down from the eight years some face, relaxing rules that were put in place after the global financial crisis.
Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority in December outlined proposals for a new platform to enable trading in shares of privately-owned firms to help the country’s lacklustre capital markets and encourage new IPOs.
The BoE is also planning to lower its proposed capital requirements for lending to small and medium-sized businesses.
In 2023, the previous Conservative government scrapped a decade-old cap on banker bonuses.
The founder and majority owner of UK menswear retailer has hit out at the government over its move to raise employer National Insurance and the Minimum Wage in April, calling the measures “anti-business”.
Nick Wheeler said the decisions were to blame for him curbing investment in Britain, and instead targeting investment overseas, he told The Telegraph newspaper.
He said this week: “With the National Insurance changes, the Minimum Wage increase and the bureaucracy that [the government] is putting into businesses, it’s just ridiculous.”
The minimum wage increase will give workers aged 21 and over an extra 77p an hour from April.
He also claimed chancellor Rachel Reeves’ policies were “driving out wealth-creating people from the country.”
He referred to her Budget-introduced policies as “anti-business”, adding that a recent move by Reeves to ask regulators for ideas on how to drive growth “was misguided… Regulators know how to stop growth. What they know is how to regulate the hell out of the country and stop everything.
“[The government] is saying the UK is open for business and they’re trying to get people to invest here. Well I’m saying, I’m sorry but I’m not going to be investing in the UK.”
Wheeler said Charles Tyrwhitt still planned to open some stores in the UK this year but he added: “Given the choice, I will invest overseas, which is a real shame. When we look at where we’re investing, it’s the US, it’s Germany, Australia, France, Sweden. It’s overseas growth.”
Expansion is based on Wheeler saying the business is only getting stronger with Charles Tyrwhitt having grown every year bar three since he founded it at university, he noted.
The plan is to open 10 stores a year, from 52 currently.
He added: “I always said, when this business stops growing, I’m not interested anymore”, but noted he has freedom to make longer-term decisions as he owns 95% of the business.
“I’m not thinking about next year, I’m thinking about 30 years’ time. If ever there’s a question about one of our stores looking tired, I’ll say, just redo it.
“If you’re planning to sell out in three years, then you’d think I don’t want to spend a million quid doing the store.”
Most recent accounts for the retailer showed sales jumped more than 45% to hit £269 million financial year to July 2023, ahead of pre-pandemic levels.
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