François Louis Nicolas Pinault, the 26-year-old grandson of François Pinault, replaced the Kering founder as a director on the board of Christie’s auctioneer on March 26. Financial Times he reported This is the first hint of a family succession plan behind the luxury group.
Founded in 1766, the London-based auction house was bought by Artémis, the Pinault family’s holding company, in 1998.
François Louis Nicolas Pinault is a product marketing manager at Kering, which owns the Gucci and Saint Laurent fashion brands. It was headed by his sixty-one-year-old father François-Henri Pinault, whose eighty-seven-year-old father stepped down in 2003. François-Henri’s brothers are on Artémis’ supervisory board.
Related Articles
The Pinault family is one of the richest and most prominent in France due to the success of Kering, despite the most recent declines in Gucci sales.
The appointment of François Louis Nicolas Pinault comes at a crucial moment in the rise of a new generation within family-controlled companies in France.
Artémis also has investments in sportswear brand Puma and Vineyards, as well as luxury fashion brands Courrèges and Giambattista Valli, as well as technology firms. Artemis also bought a majority stake in Hollywood talent agency Creative Artists Agency last year.
Last year, Christie’s reported 6.2 billion euros (about $6.7 billion) in sales. Christie’s is far from being the Pinault family’s biggest investment, but it does give them more influence in the art world, already prolific collectors. The family collection includes more than 10,000 pieces of contemporary works, and they have established several museums, such as the Bourse de Commerce in Paris and the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, to display the most outstanding ones.
