The revenge of Hermès beating LVMH in capitalization. At the close of the Paris Stock Exchange on Tuesday, April 15, 2025, Hermès International SCA’s valuation (nearly)reached 249 billion euros. By contrast, that of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE stood at 244 billion euros. The overtaking was aided by a drop in LVMH’s share price due to a disappointing quarterly report. Quite the revenge, for someone who, 15 years ago, had said “No” to Bernard Arnault.
Hermès’s payback
“Hermès is considered to be more resilient in certain contexts, which are more uncertain, and that is exactly what is happening right now”, said Jelena Sokolova, an analyst at Morningstar, who considers “LVMH a bit more cyclical than Hermès”. Fifteen years after Arnault’s attempt to get his hands on Hermès, the Dumas family gets a nice payback, and the confirmation that the strategy of remaining independent was, and is, the right one.
CAC40 Index
At 249 billion euro in valuation, Hermès has become the most valuable company in the French CAC40 index and the third-largest listed company in Europe, after software company SAP and pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. Bloomberg recalls how last February, Hermès’ valuation had crossed the symbolic 300 billion euro threshold. But then Trump’s tariffs, and a general uncertainty about the future of luxury ended up penalizing the entire sector.
Arnault still at the top
LVMH knows something about this: the French luxury giant was the first European company to cross the $500 billion threshold two years ago. As the stock reached 904.6 euro-per-share, today it stands at 486 euro. And, again considering the same period, LVMH’s capitalization fell from 454 to 244 billion euros. And while Arnault is at the top of the list of the world’s richest (he now ranks fifth in the Bloomberg Billionaires index), the Hermès-Dumas family is the richest in Europe with an estimated fortune of about $171 billion as of December 2024.
Photos from Hermès and Louis Vuitton
