François-Henri Pinault Steps Back: A Luxurious Legacy and Strategic Shift at Kering

François-Henri Pinault inherited one of the largest luxury conglomerates at the age of 40, after his father’s sudden retirement at 66. At that time, Kering was not called Kering, and the core of the business was timber and large-scale distribution, not European luxury brands. Twenty years later, and having redrawn the empire he inherited, he takes a step back in management.

François-Henri Pinault is not a self-made man. In contrast to the business success story of his father, François Pinault, from whom he inherited both a name and an empire, the French businessman took over in 2005 at the helm of an already consolidated group and owner, among others, of a number of fashion brands. In 2005 he took the helm of an already consolidated group that owns, among others, a global timber company, Fnac, Printemps, La Redoute and stakes in Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta. What Pinault junior is, however, is one of the examples where the son ends up surpassing the father’s legacy.

Like him, the French businessman has opted for an early retirement at the head of the company. If Pinault senior retired at the age of 66 from the presidency of Kering (then still known as PPR), Pinault junior has recently announced that he is stepping back from the general management of the company, at the age of 63. The decision of both entrepreneurs contrasts with that of the other great family lineage of luxury in France, that of Bernard Arnault, president of LVMH, who in April renewed his mandate at the head of the conglomerate until the age of 85.

Pinault Jr.‘s time at the helm of Kering has come to an end after two decades at the helm. If his father built the family empire, he has been in charge of building a luxury giant. By the time Pinault inherited the company, the luxury companies that are now the core of the business represented just 10% of the turnover of the French conglomerate.

Pinault inherited a company in which luxury barely accounted for 10% of the business

One of the first decisions the businessman made after replacing his father as chairman of the family holding company Artemis (through which they own part of Kering) was to declare himself CEO, the position he has just resigned.

To turn PPR into a luxury giant, Pinault had a clear strategy from the outset : get rid of all those assets that would divert him from his ultimate goal. On this path, the entrepreneur got rid of the Printemps department store, floated Fnac on the stock market and sold his stake in other companies in the sector such as Puma or Stella McCartney. By 2013, when the family business began operating as Kering, of the three acronyms that once gave PPR its name (Pinault, Printemps and La Redoute), only one remained, his surname.

Unlike his father, Pinault junior’s career has also been marked by public opinion. The first scandal for the businessman came in 2012, when supermodel Linda Evangelista, with whom he had been in a relationship at the time he took over the family business, sued him publicly to claim child support for a son they had a child together, and whose existence had been kept secret until then. At the time of the lawsuit, Pinault was already making headlines due to his relationship with actress Salma Hayek.

After two decades at the helm of the luxury group, Pinault is now stepping down from the helm of Kering with a strategy similar to the one that has marked his years at the company. The executive has appointed Luca de Meo, coming from the automotive sector and having worked for companies such as Renault or Volkswagen, to lead Kering, and positioning the businessman in the exclusive and reduced list of external managers who occupy high positions at the head of a company in the luxury fashion sector.

The objective? To relaunch the value of the conglomerate, which has already accumulated months of falls due to lower consumption in China and a certain consumer fatigue towards the group’s brands.