Companies linked to French billionaire Bernard Arnault’s LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton have amassed $5.2 billion in assets in Belgium, where he recently applied for citizenship.
Belgian central bank records show that 12 companies and a private foundation, all connected to LVMH and based in Brussels, have more than tripled their assets since 2008.
Olivier Labesse, an LVMH spokesman, said the companies are investment vehicles for LVMH, which has annual revenue of $26 billion. The Paris-based company has made Belgium its “operational center of finance” in recent years to take advantage of more favorable tax treatment there, he said.
The shifting of assets to Belgium “has nothing to do” with Arnault’s personal tax situation, Labesse said.
Arnault, 63, the chief executive officer of LVMH and France’s richest man — with a net worth of $25.7 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index — sparked an uproar in France this month when he said he was seeking Belgian citizenship, just as French President Francois Hollande plans to impose a 75 percent tax on income of more than 1 million euros ($1.3 million).