Succession @Successionwire

The Commodore’s Curse: How the Vanderbilts Built the Largest Fortune in America and Mange to Lose It All substack.com/@succession/no…

Sam Walton started Walmart with one rule: stack it deep, sell it cheap, and treat every customer like family. No fancy MBA. No inherited fortune. Just relentless hustle, small-town values, and a obsession with beating yesterday’s prices. He turned a single dime store into the biggest retail machine on Earth. The full story and the brutal lessons every founder needs is in my new newsletter. Click this link! succession.substack.com/p/price-is-pow…

The incredible story of Li Ka-Shing. Worth a read! open.substack.com/pub/succession…

Arnault turned a one-franc rescue into Europe’s richest family fortune and the most profitable luxury empire on earth. His governance is bulletproof. His wealth preservation is flawless. But succession planning? Graded a D. Five equally powerful heirs, no designated leader. The empire is extraordinary. The question of what happens the day he’s gone is the only one he still hasn’t answered.

Five children. No named successor. Delphine runs Christian Dior Couture. Antoine controls the family holding company. Alexandre leads Moët Hennessy. Frédéric just took Loro Piana. Jean runs Louis Vuitton watches. All five have equal stakes and major operating roles. Arnault amended the charter to stay CEO until 80. Tension level: Succession.

He tried the same stealth playbook on Hermès using hidden equity swaps. Family was blindsided. LVMH was fined €8M for disclosure tricks… then made €3.8 billion profit when forced to exit. Tiffany? Pandemic collapse let him renegotiate $425M off the price. Every battle, win or lose, made him richer.

Media mogul in his 90s. Multi-billion-dollar empire. Six adult children from three marriages. A family trust was locked in during his 1999 divorce. It was designed to be hard to change, and later efforts to alter it failed in court. The four eldest children were set for equal voting power after his time. Pushing to give one son full command instead triggered bad-faith findings and a bruising legal showdown. Outdated family rules and trustee setups couldn't keep pace with multiple marriages and clashing worldviews. The result was prolonged court fights that played out in headlines. One daughter builds TV shows, another champions causes. Sons range from hands-on operator to outsider. Several watched their say get boxed in despite big stakes. The trust formed when the empire was far smaller and the blended family younger. No meaningful updates followed as fortunes multiplied and dynamics shifted. Over 25 years passed. Divorces, new heirs, political rifts, and media revolutions changed everything. Heavy costs went into the initial divorce-era structure. Almost nothing on keeping it current. Now the adult children have burned through millions in fees, endured public drama, and hammered out a settlement to break the deadlock. This isn't just about dividing wealth. It's a collision with paperwork built for a family and world that no longer exist. This is the Murdoch family. Estate plans age out fast. What protects you today can handcuff your heirs tomorrow. Get yours reviewed on a schedule and after every major life event. Don't force the next generation to pay lawyers to clean up what you could have fixed yourself. Subscribe to my Substack Succession newsletter for more insights on family empires, succession wars, and protective planning.

Arnault’s playbook: Find a legendary but undervalued brand, buy before rivals, keep the creative talent, plug into LVMH’s machine, and never compete on price. Result? 75 houses, €84.7B revenue, 23.1% operating margin in 2024. Even his “losses” were wins: he made $700 million walking away from Gucci.

1987: Two luxury giants merge to fend off raiders and immediately start fighting each other. Both invite Bernard Arnault in as an “ally.” Within 18 months he owns 43.5% of the new company, forces both CEOs out, and becomes chairman & CEO of LVMH at age 39. He didn’t create LVMH. He conquered it.

Which part will fall?

Bernard Arnault is dominating luxury RIGHT NOW and most people have no idea how. He turned a single franc bet into a ruthless $400B empire, crushing Louis Vuitton, Dior, and the entire game with cold strategy and billion-dollar takeovers. Read this story before it disappears!

Born in a gritty textile town in northern France, Bernard Arnault trained as an engineer, took over his father’s construction firm at 25, then fled Mitterrand’s nationalizations to study American leveraged buyouts in Palm Beach. He returned in 1984 with one target in mind: the dying Boussac conglomerate hiding Christian Dior inside. He didn’t build luxury. He weaponized it.

Bernard Arnault understood one thing better than anyone else. When you control the desire, you control the price. Click this link to read the full breakdown of how he acquired and scaled LVMH. open.substack.com/pub/succession…

In 1984, France’s biggest textile empire was bleeding 1 million francs a day and headed for historic bankruptcy. 35-year-old Bernard Arnault bought the entire wreck for one franc, fired 9,000 workers, sold off everything except Christian Dior, and walked away with $500 million cash. That single deal became the foundation of today’s $300 billion LVMH empire. The Terminator had arrived.

@stevechenning ELONNNN

@stevechenning Rough day for speculators

The ability to pivot into the unknown compounds forever. The 1983 Tokyo Declaration bet everything on semiconductors with zero expertise. The 1993 Frankfurt Declaration demanded quality or death. Both changed history. The tax is paid. Cases are closed. Lee Jaeyong leads with record profits from AI chips and a 25.4 billion dollar fortune. Will the fourth generation even step up? The distance from 30000 won to a trillion dollar company is enormous in scale, ambiguous in meaning, and never quite finished.

A liquidity crisis reveals true priorities. Mother and sisters sold shares. Lee Jaeyong borrowed and bought more. Control always came first.

In October 2022 Samsung named Lee Jaeyong Executive Chairman. First time a third generation leader held the top title. His net worth now stands at 25.4 billion dollars. South Koreas richest person.