5 dollar bills (illustrative image). – Eva HAMBACH / AFP
The leading trio remains unchanged: Arnault – Bettencourt Meyers – Pinault. But the French ranking of billionaires, published by the magazine Forbes, sees three new arrivals this year, despite the coronavirus crisis.
France rose in the Forbes ranking from 39 to 42 billionaires between 2019 and 2020 – Olivier Dassault having died in a helicopter crash in March. Holding 8% of the capital of Moderna Therapeutics, an American company at the forefront of the anti-Covid vaccine race, its French CEO Stéphane Bancel makes an entry directly to 23rd place in the ranking Forbes with a fortune estimated at 3.5 billion euros.
Motorhomes and great wines
Second entry, that of Olivier Pomel, in 34th place with 1.5 billion euros. The CEO of the cloud watch company Datablog owns 6% of the shares which saw their price soar by 39% after the first day of listing on the Nasdaq, according to the magazine. The market capitalization of the company he co-founded and which is present in 24 countries has already reached 10 billion euros.
François Feuillet follows in 35th place with a fortune of 1.5 billion euros. The CEO of Trigano holds 58% of the shares of this leading European group of motorhomes and owns 9.5 hectares of fine vines, according to Forbes. Finally, Yves-Loïc Martin, enters 36th place with 1.4 billion euros. He is the brother of Gilles Martin who founded the Eurofins Scientific analysis laboratories, positioned in the food industry, pharmacy, environment and medical biology. He is now a director and holds 11% of the shares, according to Forbes.
Luxury and pharmacy
If the top 10 of the ranking of French billionaires remains unchanged, all have seen their fortunes increase in 2020. The president of luxury leader LVMH, Bernard Arnault, remains in the lead with a fortune estimated by the magazine at 125.2 billion euros ahead of Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, heir to L’Oréal (61.4 billion) and François Pinault of the luxury group Kering (35.3 billion).
Follow the brothers Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, owners of Chanel (28.8 billion each), Emmanuel Besnier, heir to Lactalis (15.9 billion), Patrick Drahi, owner via Altice of BFM, Release and RMC (9.8 billion), Rodolpe Saadé of the French shipowner CMA-CGM (9 billion), Xavier Niel, owner in particular of Iliad-Free and du Monde (7.3 billion) and Alain Mérieux of the pharmaceutical empire bioMérieux (6.8 billion).