Luxury goods giant LVMH’s stock is down 26% this year amid declining revenue — due to Middle East conflicts and exchange rates—slashing nearly $50 billion from its billionaire owner Bernard Arnault’s fortune.
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Key Takeaways
- LVMH reported €19.1 billion in first quarter revenue, down 6% from the first quarter of 2025—though organic growth remained positive at 1%, with the gap between the two figures driven almost entirely by a 7% exchange rate headwind.
- Despite positive organic growth year-over-year, revenue is down nearly 16% from the final quarter of 2025, and the stock has nosedived around 26% this year—the company’s worst start to a year on record, worse than the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic and the dot-com bust, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
- The plunging stock price has wiped nearly $50 billion from the fortune of founder and CEO Bernard Arnault, who owns roughly 50% of LVMH and holds minority stakes in Hermes and Birkenstock.
- The company reported positive or neutral organic growth across most categories of its business—including wine and spirits, perfumes and cosmetics, watches and jewelry and selective retailing—except a 2% organic decline in its fashion and leather goods division which includes brands Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Celine, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs and luggage maker Rimowa.
- The company cited impacts from conflicts in the Middle East as the main driver of the declining sales in fashion and leather goods.
Forbes Valuation
Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, is Europe’s richest person and ranked number one on Forbes’ billionaire list at various points between 2019 and 2024—worth an estimated $233 billion at his peak. Today, the 77-year-old luxury goods tycoon is worth $151 billion and has fallen to ninth-richest in the world, behind Jensen Huang. Starting his career in the construction business, Arnault pivoted to luxury fashion in 1984 when he bought Christian Dior out of bankruptcy for $95 million and began to strategically increase his shares in LVMH amid its ongoing management conflicts. He cemented his ownership of LVMH by 1989, folded Dior into the company and began building a luxury goods empire which now includes 75 brands spanning fashion, jewelry, beauty and alcohol. Arnault first appeared on Forbes’ list of World’s Billionaires in 1997 when he had an estimated $3.6 billion net worth.
Key Background
This year was projected to be a rebound for the market, which had in late 2023 faced its first real contraction excluding the pandemic. The slump is largely a hangover from an extraordinary post-pandemic boom in which brands leaned too hard on price hikes to sustain growth: between 2023 and 2025, around 80% of luxury market growth is estimated to have come from price increases rather than volume gains, according to McKinsey’s 2026 State of Fashion report. But the industry has yet to stabilize given new headwinds from the conflict in the Middle East—where a small but strong customer base had been able to offset declining sales in areas like China—as well as exchange rate fluctuations and dwindling aspirational consumers due to rising costs of living. Nonetheless, growth of more exclusive luxury brands like LVMH’s Loro Piana, which grew 12%, is showing the strength of the ultra-wealthy consumer while overall consumer sentiment is declining.
Big Number
$500 billion. In the peak of the post-pandemic luxury goods demand in April 2023 when LVMH reported double the expected quarterly sales growth, LVMH became the first European company to reach a $500 billion valuation with its share price surpassing €900 ($977) and Arnault’s fortune soaring past $200 billion. LVMH’s share price is down 46% since its peak and currently has a €238 billion ($269 billion) market cap.
What To Watch For
Gucci parent Kering will announce first quarter earnings tomorrow around 12 p.m. EST followed by Hermes earnings on July 25 at 12 p.m. EDT and Prada Group’s earnings on April 15 at 8 a.m. EST.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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