Bernard Arnault has built the most valuable luxury empire on earth, and he has done what almost no founder dares to do: he has put all five of his adult children in senior roles across the company. He has two children from his first wife, Anne Dewavrin, Delphine and Antoine. Delphine runs Dior Couture. Antoine oversees image and communications for the group and chairs Christian Dior SE (Societas Europaea), the overarching corporate holding company. His remaining three sons from his second wife, Hélène Mercier, also hold leadership positions. Alexandre, is the Deputry CEO of Moët Hennessy, reporting to the President and CEO, Jean-Jacques Guiony. Frédéric was appointed CEO of LVMH Watches in January 2024, however he relinquished this role in June 2025 when he was named CEO of Loro Piana. The current CEO of LVMH Watches is Jean-Christophe Babin, also the CEO of Bulgari. Jean, the youngest born in 1998, is the director of development for Louis Vuitton’s Watch Division.

And yet none of that answers the one question investors actually want resolved: what happens when Arnault, now 77, eventually steps back?

Terry Smith, CEO of Fundsmith, who has held invesmtnet in LVMH since 2020, recently sold its entire holding in LVMH during the first six months of 2026. In his letter to shareholders regarding LVMH sale he cited weak recovery in the Chinese market, as well as the statement: “Family succession plans are also an increasing concern.” Perhaps this simmering tension led to Arnault unexpectedly thrusting his 5 successors into the spotlight during the LVMH annual general meeting in April 2026, where each leader was required to present results and the strategy for their respective divisions. During the meeting Bernard Arnault told investors at the meeting he intended to focus on succession when he reaches eight-five years - he is currently seventy-seven years

Le Monde's six-part series on the Arnault dynasty forced the question into public view. Arnault himself pushed back hard, dismissing suggestions of a Succession -style rivalry among his children as tabloid fantasy. The tension is a structural issue, and LVMH is simply the most visible example of a problem that plays out in family businesses at every scale, from global conglomerates to regional firms preparing to hand over to a second generation.

Leadership succession is a high volatile period but especially so for family owned businesses. Professor Panikkos Poutziouris , Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, Board Member at the Family Firms Institute and Partner at Zateon Consulting, has worked extensively with family firms, he states nearly 70% of family businesses fail to survive under family control once they move from founder to second-generation leadership. He goes on to explain why this period accentuates inherent weaknesses in planning, "Founders frequently focus on business survival and growth while neglecting evolving ownership and family relationships," Poutziouris explains. "Without formal governance, independent oversight, and strategic diversification, family businesses become vulnerable to ownership fragmentation, conflict, and declining competitiveness."

For a company the size of LVMH, outright collapse isn’t the risk. But the same underlying dynamic applies: the leadership and governance structures that built the empire are not designed to survive an inter-generational handover. Arnault's own rise makes the point. He convinced his father to pivot the family business from engineering into real estate, then made his first move into luxury in 1971 through Lazard Frères, acquiring Financière Agache and winning the government sale of Boussac Saint-Frères for a symbolic one franc. He stripped the company down to two assets worth keeping; Christian Dior and Le Bon Marché. Sixteen years later the business was making a profit of $112million on a revenue of $1.9 billion.

From there, partnerships with Guinness, Moët Hennessy's Alain Chevalier, and Louis Vuitton's Henry Racamier built the holding company LVMH in 1987, and decades of acquisitions; including the family owned business, Bulgari in 2011. These acquisitions built the group into the multi-national conglomerate dominating the luxury market. The culture of the business was built around Arnault’s entrepreneurial flair demonstrated in his judgement, timing and risk appetite and the systems evolved around his decision-making. Crucically what has worked for the expansion of the business is unlikely to work for the business moving forward as it prepares for next generation transtion.

Why "Who's the Favorite" Is the Wrong Question

Poutziouris frames the shift founders have to make as one from entrepreneurial leadership to stewardship: "As founders age, the challenge shifts from entrepreneurial leadership to stewardship, creating space for capable successors while preserving family unity and business continuity."

That shift is harder than it sounds, because the founder isn’t just a CEO, he's a father. Choosing who leads inevitably reads as choosing a favorite child, and the fallout from getting that wrong doesn't stay inside the boardroom. It is a narrative as old as time and inextricably linked with stories of family dynasties, fuelled by the popularity of shows such as Succession. In real life the twists and turns are often far more complicated and painful and under constant scrutiny from stakeholders and customers; the Beckhams have regularly hit headlines over the fallout between the parents (Sir and Lady Beckham) owning legal copyright over their eldest son Brooklyn Beckham (and indeed all of their children).

Having spent decades working with leaders in family businesses, it is an area where I have consistently see decisions made that most often confuse credentials with legitimacy. Strong academic qualifications are valuable, but they won’t earn the next generation credibility with leaders across the business. What makes a difference? The exposure and experience outside the family business, evidence the younger generation is willing to work hard, listen to thers, bring humility along with new ideas and fresh thinking. Legitimacy comes from how the next generation performs under pressure and uncertainty, not from the family name on the door. And the more talent a global business attracts into senior roles, the more its governance has to visibly reward capability over lineage, or it risks losing that talent altogether.

What Actually Predicts Survival

Poutziouris identifies four practices that separate family businesses that survive the transition from those that don't:

  1. A Family Shareholders' Council : a formal body separating family interests from business decisions.
  2. A Family Constitution and Shareholders' Agreement : the rules of engagement, written down before they're needed.
  3. A structured succession plan : focusing on the core of values and leadership, not only on financial elements, stress-tested before the founder's exit.
  4. Independent governance and oversight : professional checks that don't depend on the founder's presence to function.

None of these are about picking an heir. They're about building a system that doesn't collapse the moment one person leaves the room. "A disciplined approach to capital allocation, wealth preservation, entrepreneurship, and conflict resolution ensures alignment between family values and business strategy," Poutziouris notes. Continuity planning isn't a document to file away — it has to be revisited as family dynamics, markets, and regulation shift.

In an interview with CNBC interview with Sara Eisen, Bernard Arnault responded to a question about succession in the following manner; "Talk to me again in 10 years, I can give you a more precise answer". His perspective hasn’t seemed to change. Arnault has said publicly that leadership isn't guaranteed to any of his children, that the best person for the role, inside or outside the family, should take it.

Whether that principle holds when the moment actually arrives is the real test, not just for LVMH, but for every family enterprise watching how this plays out. The future of family business won't be determined by who inherits the chair. It will be determined by who builds a leadership system strong enough that the business no longer depends on one chair at all.

LVMH is about to find out whether it's built one.