Louis Vuitton Success StoryBernard Arnault - Louis VuittonBorn: March 5, 1949Age: 59Country of Citizenship: FranceResidence: Paris, France, Europe and RussiaOccupation: President, LVMH; President, Christian Dior SANNet worth: US$26 billionFortune: Inherited and growingSource: LVMHIndustry: DiversifiedMarital status: Married, 5 childrenEducation: Ecole Polytechnique de Paris, Bachelor of Arts/ScienceWebsite: LVMH.com------- ---------- ---------------------------------------- ---------- ------------------Bernard Arnault was born on March 5, 1949. He is the seventh richest person in the world and the richest person of France with an estimated net worth of US$26 billion. , according to a March 2007 Forbes report. Arnault is best known for transforming LVMH, already a luxury goods giant when he took control in 1989, into a global empire through acquisitions, savvy marketing and bold design. Bernard Arnault is a native of Roubaix and graduated from the École Polytechnique with a degree in engineering in 1971. In 2007, Arnault was listed among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He also said he was a skilled pianist. At 35, using a combination of family money and loans, he bought Boussac, a bankrupt French textile group that had financed Christian Dior's original fashion house in 1946. Arnault stripped Boussac of Dior and used it as a vehicle to create LVMH , born from the 1987 merger between Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy. Once in control, Arnault fired executives from both companies, hired his own team, then spent the 1990s snapping up yet more luxury brands, including shirtmaker Thomas Pink, Chaumet jewelry, Fendi leather goods, Pucci and Donna Kara.... .. in the center of the card ......mont, which owns Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Piaget, Baume et Mercier, IWC, Jaeger LeCoultre, A. Lange & Söhne, Officine Panerai, Vacheron Constantin, Dunhill, Lancel, Montblanc, Montegrappa, Old England, Purdey, Chloé and Shanghai Tang. Arnault's influence goes far beyond couture and champagne. He is a close friend of French President Nicolas Sarkozy; a newspaper baron who is currently selling a business daily, La Tribune, and acquiring its rival, Les Echos; and a powerful patron: Arnault got the green light last fall to build a center for LVMH's arts foundation in the Bois de Boulogne. The formula, created by Arnault, is more or less this: clearly define the brand's identity, or "DNA", as he says, by digging into the history of the brand and finding the right designer to express it; strictly control quality and distribution; and create a masterful marketing buzz.