Despite the world's elite 'prepping', and 'Davos man' fearful of the rise of populism, it seems 'average joe' remains exuberant (if sentiment and stocks are to be believed). But France's richest man, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, has seen this all before and is very anxious.
France's richest man is chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world's largest maker of luxury goods. He controls about half of LVMH, which had revenue of 35.7 billion euros ($39.6 billion) in 2015 from products including Louis Vuitton leather goods, TAG Heuer watches and Dom Perignon champagne.
The boss of the world's largest luxury brands company began his earnings call with an 'unusual' proclamation of the reality he fears the world is missing…
It's been a very good year. A pretty mixed year on the whole. The first part of the year more restrained with the second part of the year displaying sharp acceleration. I'd like to review the various business groups before giving you my views on 2017, which is one of caution and I'll explain why.
And after expounding on how well things were going, Arnault dropped the uncomfortable truth bomb…
In spite of all that and in spite of the fact that the year is beginning with green lights, so I'm very cautious about 2017. Why? It may sound strange. Well, first of all, when everything's going well as it is, it's always in these times that something unexpected occurs and that we have to be very vigilant. So, I said to the teams, let's be vigilant in a period that may seem euphoric and may give – encourage people to let our people congratulate each other. The stores are full. We don't know how we can meet demand. That's pretty much summary of the situation. And they tend to ease up, but I believe we need to be extremely vigilant, because from experience, every time we found ourselves in such a situation, the year ended not so well.
And why could that happen? First of all, for almost 10 years now, there hasn't been a major crisis. The last one dates back to 2008. And when I see my friend, Warren Buffett, he always tells me I'm very optimistic for the long-term. I'm also very optimistic for the long-term, but over a 10-year period, normally there are eight good years and two not so good years or even a very bad year. Now we're coming to the end of the 10-year period. So what's going to happen when we see a global outlook with interest rates that are defying gravity as low as they are, with share prices that are rising with exuberance to quote a well-known term, with a geopolitical situation that's difficult to read?
There's talk of a trade war, tariff war, currency war with very low growth in Europe. So can all that continue to be buoyant for all our business? I think we need to remain cautious. It's better to expect a first half that will be relatively easy, because comparisons are easy. 2016, the first half wasn't that great, so this year should be okay.
Geopolitical, economic events that might unfold in a way that isn't particularly helpful, and the way the second half of 2016 was promising, we must expect things to be far more difficult in the second half of the year. So this year, and I've conveyed this to my teams, I've conveyed to them a message of great caution in spite of the results and the excellence of the figures that we're presenting. It doesn't currently have disadvantages, a difficult situation, because these are the periods when we can seize on opportunities.
Currently, share's at very high, so people continue to buy. But when share price drops, that's when they tend to sell. But they lay down their arms, but a few years later, it picks up. Perhaps during this year or next year, there will be opportunities for the group, because it's true that it's in more challenging times, I've noticed that we've always managed to increase our market share and to outperform our peers. But one never knows. We really need to be prudent. But I believe nevertheless we will strengthen our lead over the market this year.
Ironically, his CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony – who took over the call right after Arnault's soliloquy – began… "Good evening. I don't want you to get too depressed…"
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