National Tide 1980.

Chapter 1289: Letting the Wolf In

Moreover, with LV's status in the European fashion industry and Henri Racamier's connections in the business world, he has many partners to choose from.

There are actually quite a few colleagues who have worked together, have a certain friendship, and can trust each other.

Take Chanel or Pierre Cardin for example. There is no need for them to put their hopes on a stranger whom they have just met and do not know very well.

So why did he do that?

The answer is very simple: he is too conceited and too greedy.

In fact, if anyone could really put themselves in Henri Lacamier's shoes, it would not be difficult to understand the choice he made in a hurry.

Don't forget that the merger of LV and MH was a decision made by Henri Lacamier himself.

But he never thought that he would get such a result, and in fact he already regretted it deeply in his heart.

In addition, he had just suffered a serious loss from MH's backstab, and the pain in his back had not yet subsided.

He was inevitably a little cynical, to the point of doubting the concept of "companion".

Therefore, even in the face of an unfavorable situation, for him, whether or not to introduce an equally powerful ally is actually a choice that makes him feel embarrassed and worried.

Yes, although old friends like Chanel and Pierre Cardin are good, their past cooperation with each other was simply temporary cooperation for a certain product or a certain theme event.

It does not involve equity, nor does it tie the two together.

God knows what Henri Lacamier would have done had he turned to them and brought them into his company.

After subduing MH and Guinness, will these old friends also have conflicts with him over interests and power?

If that is the case, what should he do then?

Not to mention that he has too many concerns about personal relationships, even in terms of strength, these old friends cannot be manipulated by others.

But Bernard Arnault of Dior was completely different for Henri Lacamier.

First of all, in Henri Lacamier's opinion, although this person is capable, he is a student of architecture and was an unknown real estate developer five years ago. He is a newcomer who has just entered the fashion industry a few years ago.

They are still young and lack experience, and they are weak and have limited strength.

Today, Dior Couture's annual turnover is just over 100 million US dollars, which is far less than Louis Vuitton. The two companies are not even on the same scale.

This can even be seen when they are chatting with each other.

Henri Lacamier could feel that Bernard's attitude was particularly humble. He only asked for his advice in a humble manner and treated him like a student treats his teacher.

This also made him blindly confident, thinking that after the company was stable, he only needed to rely on his industry status and company qualifications to firmly control the younger generations in the industry.

Secondly, Henri Lacamier also knew that Dior, which was owned by Bernard Arnault, was actually purchased from the French government.

In Henri Lacamier's view, since this guy was able to obtain the approval of the French government to complete the commercial acquisition of this well-known brand, and he was able to achieve such a perfect result, he really helped Dior get out of the quagmire of business difficulties.

This undoubtedly shows that Bernard Arnault is a reliable person who not only has certain abilities but also has business credibility.

In addition, this person looks gentle and refined, comes from a prestigious school, and behaves like a gentleman.

Therefore, Henri Lacamier made the mistake of judging people by their appearance, and subjectively believed that Bernard Arnault's character should be more reliable.

Finally, in addition to this, Henri Lacamier actually had a little plan in his heart that he couldn't tell others.

That is, he had actually set his sights on the Dior fashions in Bernard Arnault's hands.

In this world, many people mistakenly believe that Dior is a unified brand owned by only one company.

But in fact, this brand is divided into two parts: fashion business and beauty and perfume business.

Moreover, Dio's life experience is far more complicated than people imagine.

On October 1957, 10, the master Christian Dior unfortunately died of a heart attack.

These two businesses were sold to different parties by his descendants.

So from that day on, the Dior brand has been in a state of division.

The Boussac Textile Group acquired Dior's clothing business, but later fell into operational difficulties and was acquired by Bernard Arnault.

LVMH Group has always owned Dior's beauty and fragrance business.

This means that whether it is Henri Lacamier or Bernard Arnault, the Dior brand in their hands is incomplete.

Only when they unite together can Dio become a complete Dio.

So in fact, Henri Lacamier had a dream in his heart that he was not willing to tell others.

On the one hand, he wanted to use Dior's beauty and perfume business as bait to lure Bernard Arnault, turning him into a donkey led by a carrot, and using him for his own purposes and making him his pawn.

On the other hand, he wanted to gradually control his ally Bernard Arnault and eventually transfer Dior fashion to the LVMH Group and achieve "unification" with Dior Beauty and Perfumes.

It must be said that Henri Lacamier is worthy of being the fourth generation of Louis Vuitton. He is indeed cunning and has taken into account every aspect.

The partner he found seemed to be the perfect fit in every way.

Not only can it help him solve his current predicament, but after solving the problem, it can also help him make LVMH bigger and stronger.

Bernard Arnault will use his Dior fashion to piece together the last piece of the LVMH puzzle for Henri Lacamier, making the LVMH Group in his hands shine as brightly as the sun and become the largest fashion group in France.

  How wonderful it would be if all this could come true!

But the problem is that Henri Lacamier is only a Frenchman after all.

His disadvantage was that he had never read Chinese history books, nor had he read "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "The Art of War".

He didn't understand what it meant to "don't take advantage of everyone, and don't be too clever by half", nor did he understand what it meant to "be too clever and plan too much, and end up losing the life of your loved ones".

He never imagined that Bernard Arnault, who seemed harmless and treated him like a father, was actually a wolf in sheep's clothing.

  He is really a ruthless person who can even kill his own father. How can we be willing to be manipulated by him?

In fact, don’t think that Henri Lacamier was just eyeing the Dior clothes in other people’s hands.

  But haven't they been plotting against him?

So there is no need to say what the final result is.

Because Henri Lacamier entrusted his services to the wrong person and was completely deceived by Bernard Arnauld's appearance, not only did he fail to attract reinforcements, but he also let a wolf into the house and created an extremely insidious enemy for himself.

Even though Bernard Arnault seemed to agree with him on the surface, he actually did not do what the two of them had agreed to do. On the surface, he was just pretending to be nice and playing the game of "playing the pig and eating the tiger" with Henri Lacamier.

But behind the scenes, this guy played an extremely sinister trick - killing with a borrowed knife.

That's right, when Bernard Arnault received LV's investment invitation and found out that he had the opportunity to get involved in the other half of Dior's business, he was really ecstatic about this opportunity from the bottom of his heart.

Moreover, he has the support of Lazard Investment Bank. If he is really willing to raise funds needed to acquire shares from the investment bank, he has the conditions to do so, so it is not a big problem.

But both Bernard Arnault and Lazard Investment Bank are eager for quick success and are very practical.

If they participate in any investment, they only hope to maximize their profits and get the greatest benefits at the lowest cost and in the fastest way.

As for other things, they are not important. They don't care about reputation, morality, face, conscience or anything like that at all.

So after a careful analysis of the matter, they found that LV was actually at a disadvantage, and that the MH and Guinness alliance had greater overall strength and a greater chance of winning, so they decided not to help LV.

Because if they clearly support LV, once they take any action, it will be tantamount to provoking the alliance of MH and Guinness. Not only will they have no way out, but they are also likely to face a severe blow from the other side.

How could these two wine-making companies be easily messed with?

No matter their industry status, personal connections, or funds, they are not comparable. If you bet on the wrong treasure, it would be terrible if you end up losing more than you gain.

However, they were unwilling to back down and waste this opportunity, which would not bring any benefit.

  After all, they have been salivating over the big fish LVMH for a long time. How can they miss it now that it has come to them?

That's a crime!

So the final result of the discussion was that they had to get involved, but they had to follow the law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak and do everything they could to stand on the side of the strong.

Not only must we not help LV, but we must sell LV cleanly and efficiently.

The specific method is to take funds to negotiate with MH and Guinness, gain the other party's trust and acceptance by selling LV, in exchange for some shares.

Then, use Bernard Arnault's personal charm to continue to stabilize LV, use the alliance's knife to kill the pig and divide the meat, and first completely flatten LV.

In this way, after Bernard Arnault made a plan with Lazard Investment Bank, with the financial support of this investment bank, he found MH and Guinness to surrender, and was indeed welcomed by the other party.

To this end, the three parties simply set up a new company and formed a new alliance.

By putting together the funds they each hold and the 24% stake owned by MH, the interests of the three parties are completely tied together.

That’s not all. Bernard Arnault then cleverly took advantage of the fact that MH and Guinness both had cooperation but were also wary of each other and hoped to restrain each other.

He used his personal charm and outstanding eloquence to gain the support of both parties. He became the controller of the new company and held 60% of the control.

By this time, Bernard Arnault had basically grasped the knife of borrowing a knife to kill someone else in his own hands.

And soon, MH's former president Alain Chevalier also revealed his true intentions towards LV's fourth generation Henri Lacamier.

After the new company formed by the tripartite cooperation acquired a certain number of shares, Alain Chevalier, as the initiator, convened a board meeting and formally requested that Bernard Arnault, the representative of the new company, be accepted as a director of the company.

He also announced through the media, "We need a strong shareholder organization to prevent hostile takeovers, and now we have found our very good partner, Mr. Bernard Arnault. He is simply a gentleman."

There is no doubt that when this matter came to light, LV's fourth generation Henri Lacamier was stunned at the board meeting!

The old man was almost so angry that he vomited blood because of Bernard Arnault's two-faced behavior!

Only then did I realize how dangerous the world is and understand what it means to “know a person’s face but not his heart”.

In fact, before this, Bernard Arnault had always been flirting with him, making him feel that he was one of them and was just waiting for his input.

Who would have thought that after waiting so long, I would end up with such a result.

That’s right, the other party did put the rice in the pot.

But unfortunately, Bernard Arnault turned into his rival.

The meal he cooked was not for himself, and it seemed as if everyone was joining forces to plot against him.

Needless to say, faced with such a sudden blow, it was difficult for Alain Chevalier to remain calm. He was so furious that he couldn't sit still at all!

I thought to myself, you bastard, you are with me, why did you run over there?

All right! You guys want to annoy me, don't you? Then I can't let you have your way either, I have to annoy you too.

So at that time, Henri Lacamier stood up and slammed the table, and threatened in front of all the board members that he would buy shares and increase his shareholding ratio to 33%.

This number is a very delicate one. If Henry really does what he says, he can own so many shares by himself.

This means that he has a veto over major decisions of LVMH.

Naturally, on MH's side, no matter how many alliances there are, they cannot do whatever they want.

But the problem is that Henri Lacamier was only concerned with satisfying his appetite, but he didn't understand that "a biting dog doesn't bark."

In fact, his impulsive words were equivalent to a warning to the other party.

  Didn’t he say he wanted to buy a veto?

Bernard Arnault would certainly not allow this.

It turned out that Bernard Arnault's actions were faster than rumors.

Not only is he fast, he also has money!

Within three days, Bernard Arnault, on behalf of the three companies, spent $600 million to buy shares on the open market at any cost.

He increased the company's LVMH shares to 37.5%, becoming the company's largest shareholder and gaining the first veto power.

At this point, Henri Lacamier was so miserable that he could not even cry.

If he was filled with anger when he made the bold statement and officially declared war in front of the board of directors.

Now I really regret it to death.

  It was like sitting on pins and needles, like a thorn in the back, like a fishbone stuck in the throat!

And now that the situation has deteriorated to this point, what else can he do?

That was the only way left, and he decided to put his face aside and ask his old friends for help.

(End of this chapter)