Alain Wertheimer Biography
Alain Wertheimer is a billionaire French businessman based in New York City. He is the chairman and controlling shareholder of Chanel, along with his brother Gérard, who heads the company’s watch division. Alain and his brothers own vineyards in France and California’s Napa Valley.
How old is Alain Wertheimer? – Age
He is 73 years old as of 28 September 2021. He was born in 1948 in New York, United States.
Who are the Wertheimer family?
Wertheimer, the son of Jacques Wertheimer and Eliane Fischer, was born into a Jewish family. Pierre Chanel, his grandfather, co-founded Chanel with Coco Chanel.
Is Alain Wertheimer married? – Wife
Wertheimer is a married father of three who lives in New York City.
Alain Wertheimer Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of 30.1 billion.
How much is the Wertheimer family worth?
Wertheimer and his brother, Gerard, own Chanel, the Parisian perfume and fashion house that produces Chanel No. 5 perfume. In 2021, the closely held luxury goods group, founded in 1910 by fashion designer Coco Chanel, had a revenue of $15.6 billion. Through a Luxembourg-based holding company, the brothers own nearly 1% of publicly traded US beauty retailer Ulta Beauty. They also own a racehorse business in France and the United States, which is valued according to a thoroughbred horse consultant who asked not to be identified because the company is privately held.
Alain Wertheimer Chanel
Wertheimer is the co-owner and chairman of Chanel. According to financials released by the company in June 2022, Chanel had net revenue of $15.6 billion in 2021. It is valued by averaging the enterprise value-to-sales and enterprise value-to-Ebitda multiples of five publicly traded peers: L’Oreal, Estee Lauder, Prada, LVMH, and Kering. On June 9, 2022, the valuation was updated to reflect 2021 results, resulting in a $20 billion increase.
Alain Wertheimer Family Business
According to Tilar Mazzeo’s “The Secret of Chanel No. 5,” a history of the fragrance, the Jewish family fled Paris in 1940 as German troops advanced on the city, returning after the war. In their absence, Coco Chanel attempted to take over the Wertheimers’ business in 1941. She wrote to the German occupiers, claiming that Les Parfums Chanel was Jewish property that should be redistributed, specifically to her. According to Mazzeo, she was foiled by the Wertheimers, who had passed their stake to industrialist Felix Amiot before leaving Paris, who had agreed to hold it for them during the occupation to prevent it from being seized.
In exchange for paying all of Coco Chanel’s bills and taxes for the rest of her life and funding the expansion of the haute couture division, the family took full control of Chanel’s fragrance and fashion operations in 1954. When Pierre died nine years later, Alain’s father, Jacques, took over ownership.
According to Anastasia Kourovskaia, a vice president at consultancy Millward Brown Optimor EMEA, Alain took operational control of the label in 1974, three years after Coco Chanel’s death, and began to revive the brand and re-establish it at the top-end of the perfume and luxury market. In 1978, ready-to-wear clothing was introduced, and five years later, German designer Karl Lagerfeld was hired as artistic director.
Alain is the chairman of Chanel and the Geneva-based Gerard is in charge of the company’s watch division. The brothers rarely make public appearances and never comment on Chanel. “We’re a very quiet family; we never talk,” Gerard told the New York Times in 2002. Alain and his wife Brigitte have three children and live in a Fifth Avenue apartment in New York.