Consolidating Bling?

French luxury goods company LVMH pulled off quite a coup de théâtre when it announced that it has amassed a 17.1% stake in posh handbag maker Hermès . The French market regulator, AMF, was caught unawares by the move, which came about when LVMH exercised three million options it had bought in Hermès back when its stake in the company was just 4.9%, below the threshold for declaration. The banks who sold LVMH the options will also have been left bruised by the transaction if they had to scrape the shares together for more than EUR80, the price at which they sold them to LVMH. This is likely, since Hermès shares closed at EUR176.0 the day before the deal, earning LVMH a EUR2bn windfall.

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