2023-07-24 17:34:38
The whole Paris of the future Olympics had been waiting for this announcement for months: LVMH has officially been a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games since Monday. A first for the world number one in luxury, which “does not rule out” other partnerships in the future.
The announcement with great fanfare took place at the ephemeral Grand Palais in the presence of IOC President Thomas Bach, Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris Olympics Organizing Committee, Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris and Amélie Oudéa-Castera, Minister of Sports.
LVMH thus joins the Orange, EDF, BPCE, Sanofi and Carrefour groups in the club of the biggest contributors. Its contribution is 150 million euros, AFP learned from a source familiar with the matter.
Thanks to the arrival of the group with 75 brands (Louis Vuitton, Dior, Moët Hennessy, etc.) among premium partners, the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (Cojo) is practically completing its funding round which, before the signing of LVMH, had already raised one billion euros out of a target of 1.24 billion.
“What a great moment of success for Paris 2024! Today is a fundamental step”, declared Tony Estanguet.
LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault said he was “happy that in addition to our many sponsorship actions, we can make a decisive contribution to the Paris Games”.
For the Minister of Sports, it is the “partnership of all superlatives, the largest luxury group, the most beautiful city in the world”, she declared.
Finalizing the deal took months. “There were a lot of fantasies regarding why it was taking so long,” Antoine Arnault, LVMH Group Image and Environment Director, told AFP.
“We did not want to be a purely financial partner but we wanted to have a role to play in the holding of these Olympic Games”, he added.
Concretely, several major brands of LVMH “will be stakeholders”, explained the son of Bernard Arnault, who combines several hats in the group (general manager of Berluti, president of Loro Piana, general manager of the Christian Dior SE holding company which controls the LVMH group).
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Thus, the jeweler Chaumet will design the Olympic and Paralympic medals which will be produced by the Monnaie de Paris.
The Moët Hennessy brands (champagnes, wines, cognacs, etc.) will be “hospitality partners” and therefore present in the VIP lounges.
And Sephora will be a partner of the Torch Relay.
Three other major brands of the group, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Berluti, will reveal their commitments later.
According to a source familiar with the matter, “Berluti will be very visible with the French delegation”, Louis Vuitton should take care of the boxes for packaging and presenting the medals and “Christian Dior will be present at the opening ceremony”.
The group will also enter into partnerships with athletes, the first of them being with Léon Marchand, who last weekend broke Michael Phelps’ world record in the 400m medley, announced Antoine Arnault.
The group is also committed to the Secours populaire français to finance sports licenses and initiation courses for 1,000 young people aged 4 to 25.
“This is the first time that our group has entered into a partnership like this, on a group scale,” Antoine Arnault told AFP. Usually, it is the brands that sign sponsorships with sports organizations, events or athletes.
“The group is more likely to take care of houses and advise them, and not to be involved in sponsorship itself”, insists Antoine Arnault.
But the world number one in luxury might have taken a liking to the exercise: questioned by AFP on the possibility of a new commitment for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, Antoine Arnault believes that “nothing is to be excluded”.
“We are going to concentrate on making this edition (of Paris, editor’s note) an extraordinary edition,” he said. “It will be high time following the Paralympic Olympics, at the end of September 2024, to get back around the negotiating table”.
LVMH achieved nearly 79.2 billion euros in sales in 2022, with 92% of its sales made abroad.
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