This has been a rough old year for billionaires. As shown by the latest Forbes list of the 25 richest people in the world, their combined fortunes have fallen by $200 billion to $2.1 trillion, mainly due to sharp declines in major tech companies such as Amazon and Tesla.
What the Forbes World’s Billionaires list of the planet’s 2,640 billionaires also shows is a fascinating shift over the past year in how they made their money.
Out of 25, those who made their wealth from fashion and retail rose to seven, while those who made their fortunes from technology were eight. Americans are still at the top, with 17 of the top 25 positions, but next in line are the French and Indians.
By far the richest person in the world is Bernard Arnault whose shares in LVMH, his French luxury goods empire, are trading high, making his fortune worth more than $200 billion
By far the richest person in the world is Bernard Arnault, whose shares in LVMH, his French luxury goods empire, are running high, making his fortune worth more than $200 billion.
He becomes only the third person in history to be worth that much, after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk.
The other French billionaire to rank in the top 25, ranked 11th, is L’Oréal heiress Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, who remains the richest woman in the world with a net worth of $80 billion.
Her cosmetics group, L’Oréal, which just shelled out £2bn to buy Australia’s luxury beauty brand Aesop, continues to grow with shares up 12 per cent over the past year.
Together, these two French giants are worth $694 billion and dominate the Paris Stock Exchange. They are the main factor why the French stock market has beaten the London market in value.
Yet this is a misleading comparison – as much as the French like to post the British – because it measures companies that only have a primary listing, while London has many more double listings.
In 13th place is Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, the Spanish fashion giant that owns the Zara and Massimo Dutti brands.
His fortune has skyrocketed by £14.5bn to £61.9bn over the past year as Inditex shares are up 39 per cent.
Building a huge empire is often the easiest thing. The more difficult part of running a dynasty is choosing the heir to move the business forward
What these rankings illustrate is that there’s real value in making great products that consumers want, whether it’s the cheap and cheerful fashions of Zara on the High Street or Tiffany & Co on Old Bond Street.
And they are all products that appeal to customers all over the world, especially in the developing countries of the East where the middle class is growing rapidly.
On the other hand, the rankings show how vulnerable tech giants like Amazon, Tesla and even Facebook prove to be when ravaged by the vagaries of the market, and how they all over-expanded during the pandemic years.
All eyes are now on how these three giant European companies manage succession planning. As the hit TV series Succession shows, the bickering between rival kids vying for supremacy is not only ugly, it’s troubling for business.
So far, both Inditex and LVMH appear to be taking sensible steps to avoid such infighting. The 87-year-old Ortega made the decision by handing over the chair to his daughter Marta Ortega last year in a clear line. To date, young Ortega looks good.
The 74-year-old Arnault also quickly started transferring power.
He recently reorganized the Agache holding company, giving all his five children equal interests and appointing them to key positions within the company.
His eldest, Delphine, took over at Christian Dior, while his son, Antoine, spearheaded Agache and the family fortune.
Building a huge empire is often the easiest thing. The more difficult part of running a dynasty is the choice of the heir to push the business forward – not screw it up, as so often happens with second generations.
Rotting fish
The CBI has boasted for years that it is the voice of British business, claiming it represents 7 million workers and 190,000 businesses.
It was always boasting, with the top buyers having a lot of access to powerful ministers. Indeed, some would say that power has gone to its head.
As many small firms will testify, the CBI spoke mainly on behalf of big business and often ignored the needs and demands of the country’s small and medium-sized enterprises. Yet it is these six million companies that need the bigger voice.
Unless the CBI can prove that allegations of sexual misconduct by female employees against senior staff are false, the days could be numbered.
As the Chinese proverb reminds us, “The fish rots from the head.” It is the same with companies and other organizations.
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