奢侈品帝国的上帝
2008-07-27
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| 奢侈品,luxury empire |
奢侈品帝国的“上帝”
作者：英国《金融时报》亚当•琼斯(Adam Jones)
2008年7月24日 星期四
现在，他手下的一些高管把他称作“上帝”。在自己过去25年一手创建的奢侈品帝国路易威登轩尼诗(LVMH)内外，他像上帝一样，无所不在，广受敬畏。
然而，他看上去并不像是一个帝国建造者。他是个谜一般的人物。一方面，他彬彬有礼，穿戴合宜，言辞温和，喜欢坐在办公室隔壁的大钢琴前弹奏经典曲目；另一方面，他被视为全球最冷酷、最具竞争力的企业大亨之一，也是自己所在的行业迄今最为成功的人士。
6月30日，他再次展现了自己强硬的一面。在涉及捍卫自己的形象、利益和股东时，阿尔诺是一个好打官司的人——这个特点可能是他年轻时在美国房地产和建筑市场工作时形成的。
作为法国首富，他有好打官司的资本。阿尔诺把全球最大电子商务公司Ebay送上法庭，由LVMH馗嫠茨芫×Χ啪倜吧唐返南邸６杂贚VMH旗下的众多奢侈品牌以及整个奢侈品行业而言，假货现在是最大的问题之一，LVMH旗下品牌包括路易威登(Louis Vuitton)、芬迪(Fendi)和迪奥(Dior)等，更不用说酩悦香槟(Mo?t & Chandon)、Krug香槟和轩尼诗(Hennessy)了。
阿尔诺6月30日在法庭上胜诉Ebay而获得的赔偿（6000万美元）并不是真正的重点。此案旨在向外界传递一个警告信号：奢侈品牌能够因没有采取足够促使防范假货销售而起诉Ebay等大型分销商，并能胜诉。
几年前，阿尔诺再次展现出了他美国式的敌对商业策略，成为欧洲把大型投行及其明星奢侈品分析师——摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)和分析师克莱尔•肯特(Claire Kent)——送上法庭的第一人，指控他们在古姿(Gucci)争夺战中存在偏见，支持其法国主要竞争对手弗朗索瓦•皮诺(Fran?ois Pinault)。去年，双方达成庭外和解。但阿尔诺再次达到了目的。现在，在说到或写到他的集团时，每个人都会变得更加小心翼翼。
这一切在法国企业中并不多见。但阿尔诺从未向法国传统低头。在起步之初，他并不属于巴黎商界。现在情况已经变了。如今，这位59岁的大亨是法国最有影响力的人物之一，他与法国总统尼古拉斯•萨科奇(Nicolas Sarkozy)之间的亲密友谊更增强了他的影响力。
但让我们从头说起吧。他的家族在法国北部拥有一家中型建筑公司。从巴黎综合理工学院(Ecole Polytechnique)拿到数学和工程学位后，阿尔诺没有按照常规路线进入政府部门工作，而是加盟了自己家族的企业，培养自己的创业精神，然后前往美国。回到法国后，他在35岁发起了自己的第一宗企业收购。
这第一笔交易构建了他实现远大目标的战略雏形：通过收购古老但脆弱的家族品牌，打造一个跨国奢侈品综合企业。他接管了克里斯汀•迪奥(Christian Dior)的所有者——破产的纺织集团Boussac Agache Willot。在将Boussac分拆为Bon Marché百货店和迪奥后，阿尔诺利用迪奥进入了LVMH。
当时，通过路易威登和酩悦-轩尼诗的合并，这家奢侈品集团已经建立。阿尔诺利用1987年的股市崩盘，购入了该集团43%的股权，成为其最大股东。在威登家族族长亨利•拉卡米耶(Henry Racamier)与酩悦-轩尼诗温和的首席执行官阿兰•舍瓦利耶(Alain Chevalier)之间爆发激烈的权力争夺战时，他抓住机会，获得了管理控制权。
此后，他继续扩大着LVMH的品牌组合。他利用另一场家族纷争，控制了Ch?teau d'Yquem——它可能是全球最为著名的甜酒，也是通常饮食有度的阿尔诺的最爱。他曾试图染指古姿，但经过了一场近年来最为残酷的竞购战后，败给了法国竞争对手皮诺。
即便如此，阿尔诺仍可以宣称自己确立了奢侈品行业的趋势。皮诺和卡地亚(Cartier)的所有者历峰(Richemont)等，一直在仿效阿尔诺积累品牌的做法。他还可以声自己仍然是奢侈品行业的领军者——LVMH目前员工超过7万人，去年实现收入165亿欧元，净利润20亿欧元，市值约为317亿欧元。
他的商业箴言很简单：“在正确的时间处于正确的地点。”但尽管阿尔诺的商业作风精明而务实，但他身上似乎也有像他这样身居高位的人易于出现的自负问题。他富有魅力，但也可能浑身带刺。他是一个战绩显赫的猎手。作为一位造诣极高的艺术品收藏家，他创建了路易威登当代艺术品基金会。他现在还是一位报业大亨，从英国《金融时报》的所有者——培生(Pearson)手中买下了法国领先的商业报纸《回声报》(Les Echos)。尽管此举颇有争议，但阿尔诺表示，他无意干涉该报的编辑独立性。
阿尔诺曾两度结婚，育有5子。他现在变成了一位维权股东。美国Colony Capital基金曾请他加盟，共同购入法国零售商家乐福(Carrefour)的战略股权。家乐福是全球第二大零售商，仅次于沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)。现在，Colony和阿尔诺家族的投资载体已成为家乐福最大股东，在家乐福董事会拥有3个席位。阿尔诺似乎再次利用了家乐福控股家族股东哈雷(Halley)家族之间的纷争。迄今为止，这笔投资令人失望。阿尔诺和Colony去年以每股约45欧元的价格购入家乐福股票。而今家乐福股价已跌至38欧元；账面损失约为8亿欧元。
阿尔诺仍认为家乐福存在长期机遇。他的一位关系最亲密的顾问曾建议，这位奢侈品大亨应专注于本行业。他指出：“阿尔诺在奢侈品行业以外的冒险从未戴上荣耀的王冠。”但阿尔诺有犯错误的本钱。
下一步呢？阿尔诺显然愿意给自己的奢侈品牌组合再添一名成员，长期以来，他一直在关注爱马仕(Hermès)、香奈儿(Chanel)和阿玛尼(Armani)。这些品牌都没有挂牌出售，但这不能阻止阿尔诺去憧憬。他还提出，如果英国《金融时报》挂牌出售，他可能也会感兴趣。这不仅因为英国《金融时报》是“上帝的”金融圣经；阿尔诺可能会把它视为另一个奢侈品牌。
译者/梁艳裳
阅读本文章英文,请点击 ENIGMATIC GOD OF LUXURY
ENIGMATIC GOD OF LUXURY
By Paul Betts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
These days, some of his senior executives refer to him as "God". Like God, Bernard Arnault is omnipresent, respected and feared both inside and outside the LVMH luxury empire he has built over the past 25 years.
Yet he does not look like an empire builder. He is an enigmatic figure. On the one hand he is a politely distant, impeccably dressed, soft-spoken individual who likes to play classical works on the grand piano next to his office; on the other, he is considered one of the world's most ruthless and competitive business tycoons and by far the most successful in his sector.
This week, he lived up once again to his tough reputation. For Mr Arnault is litigious when it comes to defending his image, in-terests and shareholders - a trait he probably developed wor-king as a young man in the US property and construction market.
As France's richest man, he can afford to be litigious. Mr Arnault took on Ebay, the world's biggest e-commerce company, accused by LVMH of failing to do enough to block sales of counterfeit goods. Fakes are now one of the biggest problems for LVMH's multitude of luxury brands - the likes of Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Dior, not to mention Mo?t & Chandon and Krug champagne and Hennessy cognac - and for the industry as a whole.
The quantum (�38m, m, £30m) of Mr Arnault's court victory over Ebay this week is not really the point. The case was designed to send a warning signal to others that luxury brands can sue - and sue successfully - a big distribution vehicle such as Ebay for not taking sufficient action to prevent the distribution of fakes.
He again displayed his American-style adversarial business approach a few years ago when he became the first in Europe to take a big investment bank and its star luxury goods analyst - Morgan Stanley and analyst Claire Kent - to court accusing them of bias in backing his French arch-rival, Fran?ois Pinault, in the battle for Gucci. Last year, the two sides reached an out-of-court settlement. But again Mr Arnault made his point. These days, everybody is much more careful about what they say or write about his group.
All this is unusual in French business. But Mr Arnault has never bowed to French tradition. When he started, he was not a member of the Paris business establishment. That is no longer the case. Today, the 59-year-old tycoon is one of the most influential men in France, all the more so given his close friendship with President Nicolas Sarkozy.
But back to the beginning. His family owned a medium-sized construction company in northern France. After graduating from the Ecole Polytechnique as a mathematician and engineer, Mr Arnault did not follow the usual route into a government job. Instead, he joined the family company, developed his entrepreneurial spirit and went to the US. After returning to France, he launched his first corporate raid at the age of 35.
This first deal fine-tuned what was to become the strategy for his big idea - developing a multinational luxury conglomerate by absorbing venerable but vulnerable family-owned brands. He took over the bankrupt Boussac Agache Willot textile group, which owned Christian Dior. After stripping Boussac down to the Bon Marché department store and Dior, Mr Arnault used Dior to move into LVMH.
The luxury group had already been formed through the merger of Louis Vuitton and Mo?t-Hennessy. Taking advantage of the stock market crash of 1987, he acquired a 43 per cent stake and became the largest shareholder. He seized his chance to take management control when a bitter power struggle erupted between Henry Racamier (the Vuitton family patriarch) and Alain Chevalier (the suave Mo?t-Hennessy chief executive).
Since then, he has continued to build LVMH's brand portfolio. He took advantage of another family feud to take control of Ch?teau d'Yquem, probably the world's most famous dessert wine and the usually abstemious Mr Arnault's favourite. He tried and failed to lay his hands on Gucci, which after one of the most brutal takeover confrontations in recent years, ended up with his French rival, Mr Pinault.
That said, Mr Arnault can still claim to have set the trend in the sector. Mr Pinault and others such as the Cartier owner, Richemont, have followed his blueprint of accumulating brands. He can also claim to continue leading the pack in the luxury sector, with a group now employing more than 70,000 people, with revenues of �16.5bn last year, a net profit of �2bn and a market capitalisation of about �31.7bn.
His business mantra is simple: "Be in the right place at the right time." But despite his hard-nosed business approach, Mr Arnault also seems to suffer from the ego problems those in his elevated position are prone to. He can be prickly as well as charming. He is a trophy hunter. A consummate art collector, he has created a Louis Vuitton foundation for contemporary art. He is also now a newspaper baron, having bought France's leading business newspaper, Les Echos, from Pearson, owner of the FT. Though this was controversial, Mr Ar-nault says he has no intention of interfering with the paper's editorial independence.
Twice married and a father of five, Mr Arnault has turned activist shareholder. The US Colony Capital fund asked him to join them to invest in a strategic stake in Carrefour, the French retailer that is the world's second largest after Wal-Mart. Colony and Mr Arnault's family investment vehicle have become Carrefour's largest shareholder and have three seats on its board. Once again Mr Arnault seems to have taken advantage of a split among the controlling family shareholders, the Halleys of Carrefour, to move in. So far, the in- vestment has been disappointing. Mr Arnault and Colony bought in at about �45 a share last year. The shares have since fallen to �38; a paper loss of about �800m.
Mr Arnault still sees long-term opportunities with Carrefour. One of his closest advisers suggests the luxury tycoon should stick to his knitting. "His ventures outside the luxury sector have never been crowning glories," he notes. But Mr Arnault can afford a few mistakes.
What next? Mr Arnault would clearly like to add another luxury brand to his portfolio and has long eyed Hermès, Chanel and Armani. None is for sale but that does not stop Mr Arnault dreaming. He has also suggested he could be interested in buying the Financial Times if it were on the market. Not just because it is "God's" financial bible; Mr Arnault probably considers it another luxury brand.
RESTLESS PURSUER OF LUXURY'S FUTURE
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维泰利的雄心
俏江南的“奢侈梦”
奢侈品一个厌倦的神情奢侈品,luxury1
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