By
Bloomberg
Published
May 22, 2025
The billionaire Wertheimer family behind Chanel may forgo a payout from the luxury brand’s most recent earnings cycle in a sign the industry downturn is hitting another of the world’s wealthiest dynasties.
London-based Chanel didn’t pay an interim or propose a final dividend for 2024 earnings, according to a filing. That’s the first time since the 2020 pandemic year that the maker of expensive clothes and leather goods hasn’t earmarked a windfall for the clan’s Cayman Islands-based holding company. Chanel reported a 30% drop in profit amid heavy spending on marketing and property, and weak sales in China.
Any dividend paid in 2025 will be decided by the board in the coming months, said a spokesperson for Chanel.
The latest lean year comes after a lucrative run for the Wertheimers, who pocketed $12.4 billion over the previous three years when consumers splashed out on Chanel perfume, quilted flap bags and variants on the label’s signature tweed suits. The payouts helped propel the combined fortune of the media-shy owners and brothers Alain, 76, and Gerard, 74, to $85 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Wertheimers are among a group of ultra-rich French citizens whose luxury goods and cosmetics empires fed their fortunes during the post-pandemic shopping boom but have since seen their wealth deflate.
They include LVMH founder Bernard Arnault, who is now world’s eighth-richest person with $156 billion after a stint at the top of Bloomberg’s wealth index. L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers has also dropped back to become the second-wealthiest woman after an extended perch at the top. Francois Pinault, the octogenarian founder of struggling Gucci-owner Kering SA, has seen his wealth drop by more than two-thirds since a peak in August 2021.
The absence of a shareholder payout for 2024 at Chanel coincides with a steep 43% increase in capital expenditures to around $1.8 billion, partly to buy upscale real estate. Recent purchases include buildings on Paris’ swanky Avenue Montaigne and on Rue Cambon, where the creator of the label, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, opened a hat boutique in 1910. The Wertheimer brothers are credited with owning equal shares in the closely held company, which they inherited as grandsons of one of the original business partners in her perfume operation.
Alain Wertheimer is Chanel’s global executive chairman and is on the board, while Gerard isn’t listed as a director. The Wertheimers’ family office, New York-based Mousse Partners, is headed by half-brother Charles Heilbronn and has been using proceeds to invest widely including buying a stake in fashion label The Row. Chanel began publishing results seven years ago following a group reorganization that turned it into a holding company for the brand.
