Luxury-goods titan Bernard Arnault has eclipsed Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett to become the world’s third-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Frenchman, who added $14.5 billion to his fortune so far this year and is now worth $83.1bn, edged past Mr Buffett by about $100 million on Tuesday to join the top three for the first time since Bloomberg’s wealth ranking debuted in 2012. Mr Arnault, the chairman of Louis Vuitton parent LVMH, is also the only European other than Zara owner Amancio Ortega of Spain to reach third on the list. Most of Mr Arnault’s wealth is tied to his holdings of Christian Dior and LVMH, with shares of both jumping 20 per cent this year on record sales, defying a slowdown in China. Mr Arnault’s 2018 gains rival those of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, who has added $15.2bn to his fortune, which now stands at $140.1bn on the Bloomberg index. Only Mark Zuckerberg has had a better start to the year, with the Facebook co-founder’s fortune climbing by $15.3bn.
