LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault under investigation

Bernard Arnault – the Chief Executive of LVMH is being investigated on financial transactions involving Nikolai Sarkisov.

Who is Nikolai Sarkisov?

Sarkisov oversees the largest clients at RESO-Garantiya. He’s the younger brother of billionaire Sergei Sarkisov who founded that insurance behemoth in 1991.

Le Monde cited a Tracfin report this morning and said CEO Arnault loaned the Russian Oligarch a huge sum of money for him to buy a property at an Alpine resort which is “likely to characterise acts of money laundering”.

Neither LVMH nor RESO-Garantiya has so far responded to what the French newspaper alleged on Friday. The stock market news arrives shortly after the luxury fashion goods company reported quarterly sales that did not come in meaningfully ahead of expectations.

Its shares are comfortably in the green at writing.

Did Bernard Arnault really break law?

It is worth mentioning here that the preliminary investigation which is being conducted by the Paris public prosecutor’s office does not inherently imply wrongdoing.

In fact, Le Monde did say in its report today that a friend of the world’s second-richest man has confirmed that the transaction being referred was executed well within the bounds of French law.

LVMH is currently the most valuable company of Europe – although Novo Nordisk did uncrown it last month for a few days on the back optimism related to its diabetes and obesity drugs.

The French giant will report its Q3 financial results in late October.

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