François Pinault family

Francois Pinault is the French entrepreneur who founded luxury goods group Kering in 1963 as a timber and building firm. His personal wealth is currently estimated at US$29.4 billion by Forbes despite having given up the reigns of the company to his son Francois-Henri Pinault, who took over as chairman and CEO in 2005. This number ranks him among the top 50 richest people in the world, and among the top 3 in France. He changed the direction of the company formerly known as PPR in the late 1990s, purchasing a controlling interest in Gucci, which at the time had also been a target of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods firm. In 1998 he purchased auction house Christies, and was soon embroiled in a commission-fixing scandal with rival company Sotheby’s, although he was never directly implicated. In April 2019 he donated $113 million through his family’s foundation to the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, after a fire ripped through its historic interior. Pinault and his family are also well-known art collectors, owning a 3,000 piece collection featuring works by Picasso, Mondrian and Koons. In addition the family owns French Ligue 1 football side Stade Rennais, has holdings in Vail Ski Resort in California and the French wine estate Chateau Latour in Bordeaux.