LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton reported full-year earnings on Tuesday (January 29, 2019) and in its presentation it praised the success of Fenty Beauty, a brand built in partnership with Rihanna and LVMH’s retail chain Sephora.
In prepared remarks on the company’s various brands and divisions, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault gave high praise to Fenty Beauty’s rapid ascension from a 2017 start up to a brand with a global reach. Speaking through a translator, Arnault stated, “Incredible success with Rihanna and Fenty Beauty launch in 2017; 2018, reaching about 500 million [euros] in sales, starting from zero, we must really emphasize this. Buying a business, some people would do that, and we started from zero to almost 500 million in revenue. This is thanks to [Sephora CEO] Chris [de Lapuente], who found this and managed to build it.
While not officially confirmed, it’s believe that Rihanna owns the copyright for the Fenty Beauty name along with a 50-percent stake in the company. The partnership was first announced in April 2016 when it was described as a deal Rihanna made with LVMH through its Kendo makeup division. According to WWD, she was paid $10 million up front as part of the agreement.
During the question and answer segment of the presentation, Arnault was asked about rumors LVMH and Rihanna are planning to launch Fenty, a luxury brand platform. Arnault replied, “Now, regarding Rihanna, what I can tell you, well she’s an outstanding singer, isn’t she? And I love her in terms of her artwork. And of course on makeup, fair enough, with Chris de Lapuente and Sephora she made a big success of her [unintelligible] so we could pursue the concept of developing something with Rihanna but nothing is firm as things stand now.
If the Fenty label comes to fruition (and our sources say it’s a done deal), it would mark the first time LVMH has launched a brand from inception since Christian Lacroix in 1987.
Check out the clips from the presentation below.
