French billionaire Bernard Arnault’s luxury goods brand Louis Vuitton has snapped up marquee jewellery maker Tiffany for more than $16 billion. The US-based Tiffany has been struggling of late and the deal with LVMH is likely to revive the brand’s tarnished image, Bloomberg reported. The French luxury goods maker Moet Hennessy-Louis Vuitton will now expand Tiffany’s presence across the globe and especially in the budding Asain market. Louis Vuitton also has in-house jewellery brands such as Bulgari, TAG Heuer etc. Meanwhile, shares of Tiffany witnessed a massive jump in New York after LVMH’s announcement of its acquisition.
LVMH’s Bernard Arnault ensured that Tiffany’s most important assets including its robin’s egg blue boxes, etc came to LVMH after the acquisition. “Bernard Arnault spent lots of time checking all the IPs and protections on the blue box. The most famous Tiffany product is actually its packaging, the colour, the form, the white satin ribbon, all of this is protected,” Reuters reported sources close to LVMH as saying. The Robin’s egg blue colour is synonymous with Tiffany and the brand actually has a trademark on the colour, making LVMH the new owner of the ‘Tiffany Blue’.
LVMH is one of the most recognisable and famous luxury goods companies in the world and the French brand has many expensive brands under its stable. Tiffany, on the other hand, is about two centuries old iconic jewellery brand which has a cult following and is a cultural icon thanks to Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s movie which starred Audrey Hepburn.
Meanwhile, Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani is going to bring Tiffany to India soon under Reliance Industries Ltd.’s retail arm called Reliance Brands which has brought many premium brands to India. Tiffany’s first store is expected to be opened in Delhi’s upmarket Chanakyapuri area in January 2020.