Luxury giant LVMH has unveiled a deal to sponsor next year’s Olympic Games in Paris with top fashion brands Louis Vuitton and Dior, Moet Hennessy champagne and spirits labels and jewellery concept Chaumet, who will design medals for the event.
The group will also sponsor athletes, including French swimmer Leon Marchand, and its beauty retailer Sephora will sponsor the Olympic torch relay, LVMH said. The French delegation will be dressed by one of LVMH’s “maisons”. The terms of the deal, which was negotiated by Antoine Arnault, one of the five children and heirs of LVMH Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, were not revealed.
It had been expected to cost around $166M and involve promotions focused on the group as well as its largest fashion and champagne labels, a person close to the negotiations said in May. “The Games are an opportunity to make France shine,” Antoine Arnault said as he made the official announcement.
With the Olympics now only a year out, the late-stage negotiations between the Paris 2024 Organising Committee and the world’s biggest luxury group, which is also Europe’s most valuable company with a market capitalisation of more than $443bn, have generated much interest in France.
On the sidelines of LVMH’s annual shareholder meeting in April, Antoine Arnault anticipated the opening ceremony, which will be staged along the river Seine and not in a stadium, could be the most-watched event in the history of the Olympics.
