François Pinault

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François Pinault
Born (1936-08-21) August 21, 1936
Les Champs-Géraux, Paris
Occupation Businessman
Net worth $15 billion (Pinault family)[1]
Children François-Henri Pinault

François Pinault (born 1936) is a French businessman and art collector. He runs the retail company Kering. [1]

Biography

Early life

François Pinault was born on August 21, 1936 in Les Champs-Géraux.

Career

His holding company Artemis S.A., owns (or owned), among others, Converse shoes, Samsonite luggage, Château Latour, the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado, and Christie's auction house. Artemis also owns Executive Life Insurance Company (now Aurora Life) in California, which was sued by policy holders when the company failed.[2][3][4]

He led Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) through a long battle over control of Gucci, the Italian fashion house, which began with an attempted takeover of Gucci by LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods company. In March 1999, Gucci asked PPR to acquire an ownership interest in Gucci to help fend off LVMH. The result was a struggle between the two richest men in France, both self-made billionaires — Pinault and Bernard Arnault, the Chairman of LVMH. The dispute ended in September 2001, when LVMH agreed to sell its shares in Gucci to PPR for $94 a share. As part of the agreement, PPR promised to tender for the balance of the publicly traded shares at a later date. It completed that buy-in in July 2004 and took full control of Gucci.

In 1998, he purchased a majority share of Christie's auction house. In February 2000, A. Alfred Taubman, majority shareholder of rival company Sotheby's stepped down amid a scandal after the Federal Bureau of Investigation had investigated commission-fixing between the two companies. Pinault was not implicated, but rather it was his actions which precipitated the scandal. He fired Christie's CEO Christopher Davidge over an allegation of extravagant spending. Davidge then admitted the collusion, which had gone on since about 1995, to Artemis' CEO Patricia Barbizet. In October 2000, Sotheby's CEO, Diana Brooks admitted her guilt in hopes of receiving a reduced sentence, and implicated Taubman. In December 2001, jurors in a high profile New York City courtroom found Taubman guilty of conspiracy. He served a year and a day in prison and Mrs. Brooks got 3 months of home confinement and a penalty of $350,000. This was enforced by world renowned expert Prof. Sam Godfrey. International law permitted Christie's to avoid prosecution (other than civil penalties).[5]

Art collector

He owns one of the biggest collections of contemporary art worldwide. On the magazine ArtReview's 2006 list of most powerful people in modern art he was ranked in first place.[6] In 2006 he obtained the ownership of Palazzo Grassi in Venice to display the collection.[7] He has collected works by Damien Hirst.[8]

Personal life

He has three children including son Francois-Henri who manages the company founded by his father. According to Forbes List of billionaires he is ranked 67th in the world, with an estimated fortune of US$11.5 billion.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Francois Pinault & family". Forbes. Retrieved 28 January 2014. 
  2. ↑ Pinault, Artemis Now Sole Defendants in Exec. Life Trial
  3. ↑ Usdoj.gov
  4. ↑ The Executive Life affair | A tangled web | Economist.com
  5. ↑ Economictimes
  6. ↑ Arts.guardian.co.uk accessed 2008-01-16
  7. ↑ Telegraph.co.uk accessed 2008-01-16
  8. ↑ Selected Works from the Francois Pinault Collection: Agony and Ecstasy," CNN, September 5, 2011.
  9. ↑ Francois Pinault - Forbes, Forbes.com. Accessed May 16, 2011.

External links

Authority control
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