Although we know that the coronavirus crisis is not experienced the same way for everyone, some figures still cause some frustration. The cumulative wealth of the 500 largest fortunes in France has increased by 30% in one year, according to the magazine’s ranking to be published this Thursday
Challenges, which counted 109 French billionaires this year against 95 last year.
The ranking is dominated for the fifth consecutive year by Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH, the largest market capitalization in Europe. The strong recovery in luxury goods in the second half of 2020, driven by Asia, caused the stock market prices of the giants of the sector, including LVMH (Vuitton, Dior, etc.) and Kering (Gucci, Saint Laurent, etc.) to soar, and therefore the heritage of their shareholder managers.
Bernard Arnault in the lead
According to the magazine, which made its calculation based on the professional assets of personalities between June 2020 and June 2021, the amount of the fortune of the richest 500 in the country “is now close to 1,000 billion euros. These are the strongest annual increases ever recorded by our ranking, set up in 1996. ”The number of French billionaires was 51 in 2011, according to the media.
As every year since 2017, when he overtook L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, Bernard Arnault and his family are in the lead, with a fortune estimated at more than 157 billion euros. An increase of 57% compared to June 2020. The CEO of LVMH was even a few hours in May the richest man in the world, ahead of the American Jeff Bezos (Amazon), according to the evolution of prices which vary their fortune in real time.
Doubling Fortune
“The crises make us stronger,” Bernard Arnault said at the end of April, commenting on the good financial results of LVMH, the world number one in luxury goods. Follow the Hermès family (81.5 billion euros), that of Bettencourt (71.4 billion), and in fourth and fifth place those of Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, heirs of Chanel, and François Pinault, founder of Kering , now run by his son François-Henri.
EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, eighth, doubles his estimated fortune between 2020 and 2021, as lockdowns have boosted the online trade of second-hand items. The top ten, those whose fortune exceeds 13 billion euros, saw their wealth jump by 37%. The other 490 saw theirs increase “only” by 25%, notes Challenges.