No. 1: LVMH Eclipses Rivals With Tiffany Deal

Bernard Arnault may still be wrestling Jeff Bezos to top the rolls of the world’s richest these days, but his luxury group is speeding ahead of rivals, adding distance to its lead. When LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton sealed the sector’s biggest deal ever — a plan to buy Tiffany & Co. for $16.2 billion — it extended its grip on global luxury to a particularly lucrative chunk of the industry: high-end jewelry. The repercussions of the Tiffany deal stretch across the entire sector, though, adding pressure on the group’s main competitors who, like LVMH, also trade in fashionable apparel and leather goods. Combining the financial firepower of the largest luxury group with the iconic American house — known the world over for its robin’s egg-colored packaging and classic engagement ring settings — creates a more robust competitor to the leading jewelry label Cartier, which belongs to Compagnie Financière Richemont. And at the conglomerate level, the deal shrinks the pool of potential acquisitions that can serve as building blocks for rivals seeking to future-proof their businesses. “You used to compare LVMH to the rest of the sector, now I think it’s in a league of its own,” said HSBC analyst Erwan Rambourg. “And you’ve had

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