He’s worth an estimated US$83.1 billion, Bloomberg says.

As the chairman and CEO of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, known simply as LVMH, the world’s largest maker of luxury goods, he is also the richest person in the fashion industry.

LVMH sells products that include Louis Vuitton handbags, Dom Perignon champagne, TAG Heuer watches and Rimowa luxury suitcases.

Arnault is getting richer at an astonishing rate. In January 2019, he made US$4.3 billion in a single day after LVMH shares surged 6.9 per cent.

Between the end of January and February 27, he added another US$3.9 billion to his fortune.

Arnault has never ranked third on the Bloomberg wealth ranking before.

Today four of Arnault's five children are part of the LVMH empire.

His daughter, Delphine, the executive vice-president of Louis Vuitton is, the apparent heiress to LVMH.

Arnault, 69, who has been chairman of the conglomerate since 1989.

He lives in Paris and has a holiday home on the French Riviera, attended one of the most prestigious engineering schools in France and was named CEO of the luxury goods holding company, Financiere Agache, in 1984.

Check out Arnault's career, life and family.

Arnault owns a 96.5 per cent stake in Christian Dior, which controls 41 per cent of LVMH.

LVMH, which recorded revenue of more than US$53 billion in 2018, is made up of 70 companies, which – apart from its most famous brand, Louis Vuitton – also include the fashion brands Givenchy, Fendi, Dior, Berluti and Céline, champagne maker Krug, watch brands Hublot, Bulgari and Zenith, perfume and cosmetic brands Guerlain and Fenty Beauty by Rihanna and travel retailer DFS.

Arnault comes from the northern French town of Roubaix.

He studied engineering at the École Polytechnique, which counts three former French presidents and three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni.

After graduating, Arnault spent time working for his father’s construction company, Ferret-Savinel, before entering the luxury goods industry.

He became CEO of luxury goods holding company, Financiere Agache, in 1984.

Arnault married Anne Dewavrin in 1973 and they had two children before separating in 1990. He married for a second time to Helene Mercier, a Canadian concert pianist, in 1991.

He reportedly wooed her by playing Chopin and works by other classical composers for her.

The French billionaire and his wife live on Paris’s Left Bank, south of the Seine River – a historic area that includes neighbourhoods such as the Latin Quarter and St Germain-des-Prés.

In their home, Arnault keeps a collection of modern and contemporary art from artists that include Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Maurizio Cattelan, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso.

Arnault has three children with his current wife.

Antoine and Delphine Arnault are his two children from his first marriage.

Delphine, Bernard’s oldest daughter, started her career at American consultancy firm McKinsey & Co in Paris.

In January, Delphine became the youngest member of LVMH’s executive committee, at the age of 43.

Delphine married Italian wine heir Alessandro Vallarino Gancia in 2005 in what Forbes magazine called “France's wedding of the year”. The couple divorced in 2010.

She now reportedly lives with technology billionaire Xavier Niel and has one daughter.

However, Delphine is notoriously private about her personal life. “I’m quite discreet,” she said in 2014. “I think I’d rather focus on my work.”

Delphine's younger brother, Antoine, is chief executive of menswear label, Berluti, and chairman of the cashmere label, Loro Piana, both LVMH brands.

In addition to those roles, Antoine was named head of communication and image for LVMH in June 2018.

His partner is supermodel Natalia Vodianova, whom he reportedly met on a shoot for a 2008 Louis ­Vuitton campaign.

The couple live in Paris with their two children and Vodianova's three children from a previous marriage.

Alexandre, the son of Bernard Arnault and Helene Mercier-Arnault, is the CEO of Rimowa, a German luxury luggage brand owned by LVMH.

The luggage company he runs brings in annual revenue of more than US$455 million.

Alexandre often travels between Cologne, Germany, where Rimowa luggage is made, London, his hometown of Paris, and Los Angeles, where Rimowa recently opened a new store.

He is reportedly friends with Evan Spiegel, the chief executive of Snap, Snapchat's parent company.

Spiegel says Alexandre is “a really creative guy ... he’s constantly thinking about the brand and how to express that.”

Alexandre's younger brother, Frederic, also has a role at LVMH.

Last year he joined the conglomerate as the strategy and digital director at the Swiss luxury watch company, TAG Heuer, LVMH's largest watch brand.

Frederic graduated from his father’s alma mater, École Polytechnique, and spent time as an intern at Facebook and consulting firm McKinsey before joining LVMH as the temporary head of connected technologies at TAG Heuer in 2017.

Arnault's youngest son, Jean, is the only one of his children not involved at LVMH.

Like many billionaires do, Bernard Arnault travels by private jet.

He owns a sprawling holiday villa in glitzy Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera ...

Arnault has also reportedly spent at least US$96.4 million on homes in Los Angeles, in the Beverly Hills, Trousdale Estates, and Hollywood Hills neighbourhoods.

Arnault has rubbed shoulders with some of the world's most influential figures.

In 2017, he met US President Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York, right before Trump's inauguration, to discuss expanding LVMH factories in the US.

He was photographed at parties with Lady Diana, Princess of Wales.

Arnault was reportedly friends with the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who once said to Arnault: “You know Bernard, I don’t know if in 50 years my iPhone will still be a success, but I can tell you, I'm sure everybody will still drink your Dom Pérignon.”

Lloyd Blankfein, the former Goldman Sachs CEO, has described Arnault as “a complete visionary” and someone that “saw the increase of wealth in the world”.

Arnault is close friends with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and was a witness at the politician’s 2008 wedding to singer-songwriter and model Carla Bruni.

He also considered Karl Lagerfeld, the late German fashion designer and Chanel creative director who died on February 19, as his good friend.

“The death of this dear friend deeply saddens me, my wife and my children,” Arnault said. “We loved and admired him deeply. Fashion and culture has lost a great inspiration.”

Arnault also has a long-standing public rivalry with Francois Pinault, 82, the second-richest man in France, who’s reportedly worth US$34.3 billion.

Pinault is the founder and CEO of French luxury brand Kering, which owns brands including Gucci and Yves St Laurent. The billionaire also owns Christie’s auction house.

Arnault’s LVMH originally tried to acquire a majority stake in the Italian luxury fashion brand, Gucci in 1999, but Pinault ultimately snatched up the brand.

Over the years, Arnault has built LVMH into the largest luxury conglomerate in the world and earned himself an imposing nickname: “The wolf in the cashmere coat”.

He's also behind the creation of Fondation Louis Vuitton, a Frank Gehry-designed contemporary art museum and performance space in Paris, which opened in 2014.

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