Tiffany’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is next door to Trump Tower. Fittingly, the jeweller’s $16.6bn sale to LVMH has become entangled in a trade war. The French luxury group says it cannot close the deal in November. The French government, riled by a threatened US tariffs, does not want it to, apparently.
This must suit LVMH boss Bernard Arnault. LVMH’s misgivings about paying the huge premium it agreed before the pandemic have been well-telegraphed for months. Tiffany’s shares have traded at a reasonable discount to the price of $135 specified in the agreement.
Still, merger contracts are typically bomb-proof. Few buyers ever wriggle out of them. LVMH has brought a typically inventive and particularly French twist to the problem — relying on the government to meddle in an international takeover.