The Arnault family wants to merge its holding companies to « assurer la pérennité de son contrôle » over LVMH, Christian Dior announced in a statement on Wednesday, 23 September 2026.

A simplified three-step structure

The current setup rests on a chain of shareholdings: Agache holds 100% of Financière Agache, which itself holds 96% of the capital and 97.10% of the voting rights of Christian Dior. Financière Agache also directly controls 6.77% of the capital and 8.49% of the voting rights of LVMH.

Christian Dior's statement details the mechanism under consideration: « l’absorption de Financière Agache par Agache, il est envisagé qu’Agache soit absorbée par Christian Dior, laquelle serait simultanément transformée en société en commandite par actions et renommée Agache ». At the end of the transaction, this new entity would directly hold 49.76% of the capital and 65.55% of the voting rights of LVMH, bringing the Arnault family group's total stake to 50.33% of the capital and 66.27% of the voting rights of the luxury group.

A legal form maintained since 2022

The statement indicates that « la forme sociale de commandite, adoptée par la famille Arnault en 2022 avec la transformation d’Agache en société en commandite par actions, serait ainsi maintenue conformément à la volonté du groupe familial Arnault d’assurer la pérennité de son contrôle de LVMH ».

The plan is to be presented at an extraordinary general meeting of Christian Dior in December. At the end of the transaction, the Arnault family group will have to file a public withdrawal offer, settled entirely in cash, for all Christian Dior shares it does not already hold, representing 2.44% of the capital. This offer will not be followed by a mandatory delisting from the Bourse de Paris, where Christian Dior remains listed.

Succession and governance in the background

This simplification comes against a backdrop of questions over the succession of Bernard Arnault, PDG of LVMH, aged 77. Asked about the matter at a previous shareholders' meeting, he had replied: « On reparlera de tout ça dans sept, huit ans ».

In 2025, LVMH had already put to a vote a change to its bylaws raising the PDG's age limit to 85. Bernard Arnault's five children all work within the group: four sit on the board of directors, and two of them, Antoine Arnault and Delphine Arnault, are members of the executive committee. Antoine Arnault, Bernard Arnault's eldest son, has headed Christian Dior since 2022.

Reste que this capital reorganisation comes as LVMH has recently been overtaken by L'Oréal as France's largest stock market capitalisation.