The French luxury giant LVMH is clearly not done with intelligence fishing in murky waters. Business intelligence firms have in recent months been asked to investigate journalists from La Lettre, a news site owned by Indigo Publications which also publishes Intelligence Online. Reporters from both publications had access to an investigation assignment order that centres on articles about LVMH published in our pages and on our journalist who covers the luxury sector, who is a co-author of this article.
Several corporate intelligence firms considered the request too imprudent to carry out, according to our sources, although it is not known whether the client ultimately found a company to carry out its intelligence gathering.
When contacted by La Lettre, LVMH formally denied any connection with the brief. "We formally refute these assertions," said its communications department, adding that it had "never commissioned an investigation targeting a journalist from your group".
The world leader in luxury goods is all the more categorical given that it signed a judicial agreement in 2021 that was supposed to settle a case for €10m, in which it had hired private investigators to investigate journalists from the leftist newspaper Fakir (IO, 14/03/25). Since then, LVMH had undertaken to no longer hire business intelligence firms, which had been common practice until then.
LVMH investigating the investigation
Several senior executives at the firm are however struggling to hide their embarrassment. Sources told La Lettre and Intelligence Online that LVMH's own internal security services, headed by the director of administration and legal affairs, Jérôme Sibille, have been trying since September to understand why requests for investigations and incriminating files are circulating against group executives and members of the Arnault family, which controls the publicly-listed firm.
Various service providers, notably Forward Global, the risk and reputation management firm headed by Matthieu Creux, have been called in to help understand the origin of these requests. The offer was extended to the service provider usually used by LVMH, the security company Maegis Risk Management, headed by Jean-François Rosso, which turned it down.
The assignment was circulated in May to several private investigators in London and Paris, according to our sources. It describes the client as "exposed in the luxury goods sector" and concerned that other articles "in a similar vein" in La Lettre could threaten his interests. No further details were given about the article or articles that prompted the client to commission an investigation.
Amid a series of deliberately vague and strangely worded questions, suggesting a poor translation from English, the client seeks to identify the "person primarily responsible for the recent interest" shown by La Lettre in the luxury sector and LVMH, despite the fact that its coverage began in 2022.
Another request specifically targets our journalist responsible for the luxury sector. The brief thus opens up a line of personal investigation: for what purpose did "Sophie Lecluse take an interest in this affair?", opening the door to potential information gathering aimed at identifying sources.
The assignment order also asks whether other articles targeting LVMH or its French luxury rival Kering, which is controlled by the Pinault family, would soon be published, specifying that there would be reason to take an interest in this competitor, whose market capitalisation had fallen by 30% at that time of year. The sponsor of the investigation also cites the alleged risk of interference from other competing family groups to justify these unusual measures taken against an editorial team. It also pointed potential investigators towards the possibility that La Lettre was "under the influence" of other industry players, such as Hermès or Goyard.
Internal strife
These steps come at a time when the climate of mistrust among LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault's children has escalated, particularly between Frédéric Arnault and Alexandre Arnault, the two eldest children from his second marriage to the Canadian pianist Hélène Mercier, and Delphine Arnault and her brother Antoine Arnault, from his first marriage.
Shortly before the investigation request began circulating in May, La Lettre had published two articles on the LVMH wine and spirits subsidiary Moët Hennessy. One highlighted the poor results it expected and the other revealed a plan to gradually reduce its payroll by 10% (La Lettre, 08/04/25 and 01/05/25). This branch has been co-managed since February by Alexandre Arnault, the eldest son from the second marriage.
On 1 April, a La Lettre article entitled "LVMH: the real reasons behind Frédéric Arnault's move to Loro Piana" detailed the younger son's strategic errors and managerial inflexibility when he was head of the watchmaker Tag Heuer, another LVMH firm (LL, 01/04/25). It was Frédéric Arnault who encouraged his father to send a list of seven independent media outlets, named specifically, to his extended executive committee on 17 January 2024, which the group was prohibited from talking to (LL, 12/11/25). The publication of this internal email eight months later was widely reported in the international press (LL, 18/09/24).
Frédéric Arnault hires personal PR adviser
Frédéric Arnault is a graduate of France's elite Polytechnique engineering school and has been CEO of Loro Piana since March. He is wary of his brothers and sister. He also harbours mistrust towards some of the group's senior executives, whom he suspects of not defending its image well enough, or even of damaging it. LVMH's director of external relations, Jean-Charles Tréhan, Antoine Arnault's right-hand man, who is himself in charge of image and the environment, is in his sights.
To best defend his own image, Frédéric Arnault approached Alexandre Benalla, President Emmanuel Macron's former bodyguard. He first met him two years ago and then rubbed shoulders with him in Geneva, where they both lived, sources say. Benalla carried out business intelligence work for him when he was head of Tag Heuer.
Contacted by Intelligence Online, Benalla confirmed that he had carried out work on an international level for Frédéric Arnault but said he had always refused to carry out the purely French missions he proposed to him. Contacted by La Lettre, Frederic Arnault's entourage said on his behalf that he had neither met nor entrusted Benalla with any mission.
Hélène Mercier's second son became close this summer to Louis Jublin, a former communications adviser to French ex-prime minister Gabriel Attal, who became chief of staff to the CEO of Mazarine Group, a communications firm dedicated to luxury goods (Glitz, 18/09/25). This was done discreetly, without referring to LVMH's central services. Frédéric Arnault then invited his brother Alexandre to meet with Jublin. The encounter took place in the company of Alexandre Arnault's wife at the high-profile L'Avenue restaurant, which is owned by LVMH. Mercier also had the opportunity to meet with the communications specialist.
The Arnault children then attempted in October to reward Jublin by finding him a position as an institutional relations adviser within the group. But Nicolas Bazire, the managing director in charge of public affairs, strongly opposed this in order to avoid internal duplication.
When contacted about this, Jublin said he was providing Frédéric Arnault with advice free of charge. To defend the image of Frédéric Arnault and his relatives, Jublin has also been in contact with several editorial offices since September to promote their positions within the group, including the need to turn around the ailing LVMH-owned newspaper Le Parisien.
A mysterious file denouncing the alleged proximity of the LVMH director of external relations, Jean-Charles Trehan, to Opus Dei circles was meanwhile sent in September to the investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchainé, which did nothing with it.
Two London firms suspected
LVMH's security services are struggling to find formal proof of who commissioned this dossier. They are also having difficulty finding out who was sounding out private eyes to look into La Lettre, for which there is no proof that it actually led to a contract. The usual practice in this type of investigation is to go through a foreign firm which then mandates a range of subcontractors, who work without knowing the identity of the end client.
Our sources say that the French investigators approached by LVMH's counter-investigators initially believed that the mandate could have come from the London-based intelligence firm Good Governance Group (G3). Its managing director, the Frenchman Louis-David Magnien, is a former Kroll employee who was a long-time service provider to LVMH. While seeking new French clients earlier this year, he sometimes confided to his prospects that he had ongoing contracts with the luxury group.
When contacted, Magnien refused to discuss his links with LVMH or its companies, but "denied having agreed to conduct an investigation into La Lettre". For its part, LVMH's communications department said "no-one in the group or the shareholder family is familiar with the G3 firm".
Among the many subcontractors working for LVMH, the name of another British intelligence firm also comes up repeatedly: Hakluyt, whose offices are in London's upmarket Mayfair district. It presents itself as a strategic consulting firm and has a network of French subcontractors to gather first-hand information in Paris. When contacted, after attempting to find out more about the information we had, Hakluyt said it did not "comment on speculation about clients or client matters".
Article updated on 01/12/25 at 15:35 GMT: Following the publication of this article, Maegis informed us that it had declined to work on this case. The article was amended accordingly.
