LVMH Now Owns 20% of Hermes

Bernard Arnault

If there are any doubts that Bernard Arnault is interested in a majority stake in Hermes, they have been settled. In a one-sentence statement through his company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the billionaire businessman says he now owns 21,338,675 Hermes shares, just over 20 percent of the family-owned, Parisian luxury goods company.

Paris-based LVMH enraged Hermes family members in October when it revealed it had taken a 17.1 percent stake in the company. Arnault, said at the time LVMH would continue to buy more shares but did not intend to take control, to make a public offer for the company nor to seek seats on the board.

The family shareholders of Hermes called for Arnault to withdraw his Hermes' capital.

AFP reports that LVMH is now the single largest shareholder in Hermes but it is controlled by the descendents of founder Thierry Hermes who between them hold 73.4 percent of the capital.

LVMH, the world's leading luxury group, controls brands such as Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Dom Perignon and Dior. 

I was first alerted to this story through the Lorre White, The Guru of Luxury, website, so special thanks to Lorre.

LVMH Buys 14% of Hermes

LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world's leading luxury products group, said it has bought 14.2 percent of the share capital Hermès International. The luxury good conglomerate now holds a 17.2 percent of the famed fashion house.

Its objective is to be a long-term shareholder of Hermes and to contribute to the preservation of the family and French attributes, “which are at the heart of the global success of this iconic brand,” LVMH said in a statement. The company adds that it has no intention of launching a tender offer, taking control of Hermès or seeking board representation.

According LVMH paid less than half the market price for the shares due to the use of derivatives. The $2 billion cost of the 17.1 percent stake equates to about $112.50 per share, about half of what the company was valued because of the use of derivatives, according to the Financial Times. Following news of the acquisition over the weekend, shares shot up an additional 15 percent.

Hermes said it learned of the move on Saturday, just an hour before a public announcement by LVMH, according to media reports. Heirs of the Hermès family, who own 70 percent of the fashion house, on Sunday said they had no plans to sell any of their stake and had not sold any shares to LVMH.

LVMH is the Best Global Luxury Brand

Despite the economic downturn, several luxury companies were able to increase the value of their brands in 2010, according to the 11th annual ranking of the "Best Global Brands," by Interbrand, a global brand consulting firm.

Among luxury brands, LVMH ranked the highest on the list at 16th, followed by Gucci (44), Hermes (69), Tiffany & Co (76), Cartier (77), Armani (95). All of these brands saw growth this year because they continued to invest “in their heritage and legendary status,” Interbrand said in a statement. “Outstanding customer service and a focus on unique in-store and online experiences allowed them to stay strong, even while consumers cut back spending.”

Burberry, which ranks 100 on the list, saw no change in its brand value this year.

For the 11th year straight, Coca-Cola retains its top spot as the number one ranked brand on the list. But the bigger story is the growth of technology brands, with IBM (2), Microsoft (3), Google (4), Intel (7), HP (10), Apple (17) and BlackBerry (54).

Apple increased brand value 37 percent “through carefully controlled messaging and an endless wave of buzz surrounding new product launches,” Interbrand said. Google saw a 36 percent increase in value over last year, “bringing the brand closer than ever to rival Microsoft.” Meanwhile, HP, despite a challenging year, “made smart additions to its product portfolio and swiftly expanded the HP brand to protect its ranking on the list. BlackBerry’s brand value grew 32 percent and it remains “the most popular smartphone for business users, despite pressure from Apple as it edges into the corporate world.”

A number of prominent brands faced extraordinary crisis in 2010 resulting in stalled growth, value loss and in the case of BP, failure to make the ranking this year. BP's environmental disaster and inability to make good on its brand promise of "Beyond Petroleum" led to it falling off of the list and helped competitor Shell emerge as an industry leader, now ranked number 81, up from number 92 in 2009. Although the Toyota (11) recall caused the brand to lose -16 percent of its brand value, its long-standing reputation for reliability, efficiency and innovation helped it weather the crisis better than expected. Goldman Sachs (37) was once the envy of Wall Street, but now faces the dichotomy of strong economic results and an angry public that will continue to lash out until the company begins to demonstrate that it is making sincere efforts to better align its ethics with its brand.

During a difficult year for the auto industry, Mercedes Benz (#12) and BMW (#15) were able to sustain and build their value through innovative design and a focus on delivering premium value vehicles with luxury features. Using customer feedback, largely drawn from YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook to launch the 2009 Fiesta, Ford (50) stands out as one of the best example of how to use social media. Award-winning products like the Q5 and rich heritage help Audi (63) lead industry growth this year with a 9% increase in its brand value.

"2010 was the beginning of a long road back towards economic recovery," said Jez Frampton, group chief executive at Interbrand. "From real-time customer feedback through social media to increased transparency about corporate citizenship, brands were faced with a profound change in the way they relate to customers and demonstrate their relevance and value. Despite this new paradigm of brand management, the advantages of building a solid brand remain the same."

In the financial sector, legacy brands Citi (40) and UBS (86) lost double-digits in brand value, while Santander (68), Barclays (74) and Credit Suisse (80) made their debut on the list for the first time. “Their ability to stay true to brand promises in unsure times, and avoidance of the subprime mortgage crisis, helped them stay the course, Interbrand said.

Interbrand publishes the ranking of the top 100 brands based by analyzing the many ways a brand touches and benefits an organization, from attracting top talent to delivering on customer expectation. Three key aspects contribute to a brand's value; the financial performance of the branded products or services, the role of a brand in the purchase-decision process and the strength of the brand to continue to secure earnings for the company.

Hermès Watches Reinterpret the Passing of Time

Arceau Temps Suspendu in a steel case and opaline silver dial with herringbone motif.

In the world you and I inhabit it may seem that time moves in a linear fashion. But in the world of Hermès time can be suspended and days can disappear while hours can travel at an unpredictable pace.

The famed Parisian luxury house, the apple of Bernard Arnault’s eye, recently introduced two watch lines that are not only aesthetically pleasing but challenge the assumptions of how one uses a watch.

Arceau Temps Suspendu in a steel case and black dial with herringbone motif.

The Arceau Temps Suspendu watch has a button at the 9 o’clock mark that when pressed, the hands move to the 12 o’clock mark. Also, the hand on the retrograde date complication disappears. Thus, time is suspended. To return to the proper time just press the 9 o’clock button again and as long as the automatic movement is running the hands will return to the right places.

Arceau Temps Suspendu in a rose gold case and opaline silver dial with herringbone motif.

The sophisticated mechanics are located inside a refined face that makes the movements possible. The retrograde date function, on the lower portion of the watch dial, between the 7 o’clock and 3 o’clock markers, is raised to make it easy to read—a function that is all too rare in watches. When in its suspended mode, the date hand disappears into a slightly raised section at the bottom of the watch. In addition, as part of the suspended motion, the hour and minute hands collapse into a slight V shaped depression on either side of the 12 o’clock mark.

The watch is housed inside 43 mm-diameter case available in rose gold or steel.

Cape Cod in steel with anthracite dial. The hour display accelerates from 7 a.m. till 11 a.m. and from 1 p.m. till 5 p.m. It slows from 11 a.m. till 1 p.m. and from 5 p.m. till 7 p.m. It comes with a matte graphite alligator strap.

Meanwhile, the handsome Cape Cod Grandes Heures dons three different dials where the user can choose the pace of how the watch details the time. The curved, rectangular case reveals a dial that provides time made to measure with a guilloché setting swept over by skeleton hands. The hours on the dial are bunched together and spread apart in a seemingly haphazard fashion, but there is a method to this madness.

Cape Cod in steel with silver dial. The hour display acelerates from 8 a.m. till noon and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. It slows from 6 p.m. till 8 p.m. and from noon till 2 p.m. It comes with a matte havana alligator strap.

The tempo of the hours on the automated movement accelerates and slows to correspond with the arrangement of the hour markers while the minute hand keeps at a constant speed. That’s because of a toothed oval wheel system that enables the hour hand—thanks to the shape of the gear—to speed up or slow down its motion.

Cape Cod in steel with anthracite dial. The hour display accelerates from 10 a.m. till 2 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. It slows from 8 a.m. till 10 a.m. and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. It comes with a matte graphite alligator strap.

Luxury Jewelry Brands and Students Learn From Each Other

Ketty Pucci-Sisti Maisonrouge, Luxury Education Foundation president, addresses attendees prior to student presentations.

It’s a common scene played out in universities throughout the world: Final presentations. Uris Hall in Columbia University in early December was no different with students hurrying in and out of lecture hall 301, dealing with technical issues and making final adjustments to their proposals.

It all seemed typical but yet different. For one thing many of the students were carrying Loro Piana shopping bags. They also seemed remarkably well-dressed for students, with some in proper business attire and others wearing designer outfits, in a few cases sporting serious looking jewelry. The auditorium was filled with fashionably dressed adults who were obviously not instructors or parents.

In the middle of it all, greeting everyone by name and giving direction to the students, perfectly poised and displaying a permanent warm smile was Ketty Pucci-Sisti Maisonrouge. She is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, but more importantly, president of the Luxury Education Foundation, which runs and funds this program. The majority of those in the audience were executives from the world’s top luxury brands.

Established in 2004, LEF is a public, not-for-profit organization focused on educational programs for undergraduate and graduate students in design and business students related to the creation and marketing of luxury goods. It is unusual and perhaps groundbreaking in several ways, most noticeably because it combines students from two distinct universities whose intellectual paths at first seem far different: Columbia MBA students and undergrad students from Parsons The New School for Design. It is this combination of business and creative skills that make luxury and fashion so different than other industries and it is the main reason why this program has had a great deal of success.

Amir Ziv, vice dean of the Columbia Business School, talks about integration and education. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

“Many times we talk in Columbia about integration, but we are talking about integration between accounting and finance, or economics and marketing,” said Amir Ziv, vice dean of the Columbia Business School, during opening remarks. “But this is a different level of integration. This is integration between two schools that are very different in their nature. Actually they’re coming from two different universities…. They are in a completely different stage of their life and career.”

In addition to academic integration, there’s the involvement of luxury businesses. Approximately 30 luxury brands, nearly all of them household names, participate. There are a number of educational components to LEF but the main program is the “Master Class,” where teams of eight students (four from each school) are given a direct problem from one of the brands to solve for them. These are real life challenges and they work directly with the executive staffs of each luxury brand. It’s a semester-long program that culminates in the final presentation, such as the one held in December 2012 where teams of students presented solutions to problems proposed by luxury brands Hermès, Van Cleef & Arpels, Pomellato, Loro Piana and Chanel.

LEF is certainly a group effort, but the person who makes this complex, convoluted engine hum is Sisti Maisonrouge. Her duties include designing the course, personally attending every meeting between the brands and students, teaching classes and choosing the Columbia MBA students who will participate and for which brand. She says her main job is making sure the brands, in particular the CEOs, put the work in.

“The reality is yes I work hard on it but I make the CEOs work harder than they ever thought they would,” the French native said. “The more time they give the more they will get back.”

Maisonrouge’s counterpart at Parsons, Jessica Corr, an assistant professor and a product design consultant who is new to LEF, selects students from the design school based on their skills. For example, the Hermès project required students with creative technological ability.

The final presentations for public viewing are 15-minute versions of approximately hour-long proposals that the brand executives saw. In addition to time constraints, the reason for this is so brands can maintain an advantage over what Maisonrouge describes as their “friendly competitors.”

“What you saw is what I call the politically correct version,” she said.

The brand executives choose the topics or challenges for the students to solve but Maisonrouge “tweaks the problem” to ensure that everyone benefits. The students benefit through real life implication of what they learned in the program. The luxury brands benefit through the ideas generated from young consumers, particularly through the use of technology, and they gain a better understanding of what young consumer expect from a luxury brand. 

An image from the Hermès presentation titled, "The Living House."
Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

For the Hermès presentation titled, “The Living House,” one of the challenges the students faced was how to make entering an Hermès store a less intimidating experience. The answer they presented was to use technology to engage pedestrians. They built a storefront window with handprints that looked as if they were created by light or frosted glass. This invited pedestrians to place their hand over the handprint. Doing this activated a holographic image of a Hermès craftsperson at work behind the window.

“They come up with many things that we never thought of and that’s what’s so refreshing and rewarding,” said Robert Chavez, Hermes USA president and CEO, who has been involved with the program since the beginning. “I thought it was just genius. I give them a lot of credit.”

He said during the course of the semester, there were about five meetings with the students. The initial presentation where they receive in-depth knowledge about the brand and a “rough guideline of the general theme,” then follow up meetings to determine the progress.

“We don’t really have input into their presentation,” Chavez said. “What we do is we guide them. They ask us a lot of questions and we’ll answer all of their questions. We always let them do the actual presentation themselves. What they come up with are their ideas and concepts.”

The Van Cleef & Arpels team presenting their pitch. Photo credit: Anthony DeMarco

For Van Cleef & Arpels, it was the first time they participated in the program. The brand asked the students to come up with a marketing strategy for a new bridal line for the U.S. market.

“The entire process from choosing an engagement ring to walking down the aisle is a very sociological process and one that varies even within cultural subsets by age,” Nicolas Bos, CEO Van Cleef & Arpels Americas. “The opportunity to work with students was particularly intriguing because this is a generation who consumes incredible amounts of information from all different types of media in virtual real-time; who are both influenced and influencers within their social and familial networks.”

Bos said the brand had five meetings with the students and spent a great deal of time educating them on the history of the brand. Bos said the students “got it” almost immediately.

“What was especially surprising and exciting about the student team was their capacity to work at a very fast pace, to understand our Maison and values in the space of not only the luxury world but also the fine jewelry world, and their agility moving forward quickly through the project without delays or confusion,” he said.

The team developed a story telling strategy that focused on two-way communication between the brand and customer. “Where Van Cleef could reach into their rich history and tell their stories to the customer, but also hear from the customers themselves and take those stories on board,” one of the team members said during the presentation.

The story they told was the love story of Estelle Arpels and Alfred Van Cleef who married in 1896 and established the first Van Cleef & Arpels boutique on Place Vendôme 10 years later. They presented as a video with music in storybook form but it is designed to be used for all media purposes. They also used the story in a window display at the Van Cleef New York boutique.

The second part of the strategy is a call for the general public to present their love stories through Facebook. The winner will receive a free trip to Paris to have a custom ring designed at the Place Vendôme boutique.

“While this information is historically a part of who we are and why we are here, the students’ reactions to and inspiration from this information reinforced this story of love, family and legacy, to reposition it from unique backgrounder to impactful messaging points—particularly as it pertains to the bridal market,” Bos said.

In others words the students were able to bring a new perspective to a timeless love story.

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