LVMH withdraws its holdings from Belgium

The French luxury goods group LVMH is relocating its investments, which were previously based in Belgium, to France.

This decision ends a phase of tax optimization that had attracted the attention of the French authorities, as reported by the media agency La Lettre. In 2019, 81 percent of the group’s shares were in Belgium, according to the Belgian media L’Echo reported. The affected Belgian companies, which had a stake in the Arnault Group – which controls LVMH – were called Pilinvest Participations, Pilinvest Investissements and Belholding Belgium. The company LVMH Finance Belgique acted as a bank for LVMH companies worldwide, collecting cash and issuing loans from Belgium.

This tax system had attracted the attention of the French tax authorities for several years. In 2024 they finally gave up proceedings for tax fraud against the luxury giant. The authority opted for a “tax partnership” instead. According to La Lettre, the luxury group now manages its internal bank with assets of 28 billion euros from Paris. Today, LVMH Group Treasury is the Paris-based entity responsible for the central financial management of the LVMH Group and is wholly owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE.