LVMH have bought Tiffany, how they can justify $16bn now I don’t know

The only explanation is that LVMH were trapped in the deal, how else can they justify forking out on a luxury jewellery company while the rest of us fight against a pandemic, asks Chris Blackhurst

Tiffany’s performance due to the coronavirus outbreak was ‘catastrophic‘ and its future prospects were ‘dismal’ (AFP via Getty)

Board meetings of Tiffany, the US jeweller, are extremely private affairs, which is a pity because this week I would have loved to have seen the smiles on the directors’ faces as they agreed to accept the revised offer from LVMH, the French luxury goods group, of $15.8bn (£12.2bn) for their company.

Just writing that figure makes me shake my head in disbelief and throws me back to a bygone age, the one before Covid-19, when looney money was being chucked around, especially for high-end designer clothes and accessories. Seeing the announcement struck a jarring note – exactly the same as the one from the news that Kim Kardashian was spending a reported $1m on holding her 40th birthday party for family and close friends on Marlon Brando’s private island in Tahiti. It was completely wrong, tone deaf, utterly out of touch with the times in which we’re living – and how we’re viewing the world and will continue to view the world once the pandemic is ended.

LVMH had been doing their level best to scupper the agreement struck a year ago in that halcyon, some might say insane, era. Then, Bernard Arnault, the billionaire chair and chief executive of the company behind brands such as Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, said he would pay $135 a share for Tiffany. The new price is the equivalent of $131.50, a reduction of $425m off the total or a mere 3 per cent.