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After Bernard Arnault raised his own retirement age from 75 to 80 in 2022, Warren Buffett wrote to the luxury tycoon suggesting he should have raised it even more.
The prominent investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway wrote to LVMH’s CEO saying that “it was a mistake to set the age limit too low,” Bloomberg reported. report this week.
Buffett, 93, may be right: Arnault, 75, has no plans to retire anytime soon. “I don’t think he’ll ever retire,” one of Arnault’s sons told Bloomberg.
Like Buffett, Arnault loves his job, is proud of having built one of the world’s largest companies, and is said to feel a duty to preserve that tradition and continuity as he hands it over to the next generation.
The two men have a lot in common: They are both among the richest people in the world, worth more than $100 billion each, and both run publicly traded companies into old age.
Moreover, the company has built a vast conglomerate with dozens of independently autonomous subsidiaries. LVMH’s brands include Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon, Hennessy, Christian Dior, Sephora, and Tiffany & Co.
Berkshire’s businesses include Geico, Dairy Queen, Duracell and Squishmallow maker Jazwares.
Buffett’s ardent followers probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear him make the comments to Arnault: The Berkshire Hathaway CEO has long believed that great business managers are like fine wine: They only get better with age.
“Buffett’s belief is that the best people who sit on his board and run his company will get better with time and experience and therefore shouldn’t face retirement,” Larry Cunningham, a law professor emeritus at George Washington University and author of “Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Value,” told Business Insider.
In fact, of Berkshire’s 14 directors, only one is under 60 and six are over 70, according to the company’s most recent filing. Submitting a power of attorneyThe late Charlie Munger, Tom Murphy, Walter Scott and David Sandy Gottesman all served on the board well into their 90s.
“He often joked that his death was far in the future,” Cunningham said of Buffett. I once said jokingly He told CNBC that 103 is the “norm” for retirement at Berkshire because one of his most senior executives, Mrs. B., retired at that age.
Buffett also joked that he might rival Methuselah, the biblical figure who reportedly lived to be 969 years old.
“Meanwhile, he joked at this year’s meeting about his age, saying he read the mortality tables and knew his time was short,” Cunningham added.
Buffett is at the height of his tenure as CEO, and his letter to Arnault suggests he believes LVMH’s chief executive can still withstand a lot of wear and tear before needing to be replaced.