François Pinault and his family are ranked No. 81 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, tied with Vagit Alekperov, with a net worth of $29.5 billion. He founded the luxury group Kering and owns Christie’s through the holding company Artémis.
François Henri Joseph Pinault was born on August 21, 1936, in Les Champs-Géraux, in northern Brittany, France. His father was a timber trader. He dropped out of school at 16, enlisted in the army during the Algerian war in 1956 and then returned to the family business.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 81 (tied with Vagit Alekperov), with $29.5 billion, listed as “François Pinault & family”
- Source of wealth: the holding company Groupe Artémis and its stake in Kering
From Timber to Luxury
- 1963: he started his own wood-trading company, Pinault SA, which grew by acquiring struggling companies, including Chapelle Darblay, and restructuring them
- 1988: Pinault SA was floated on the Paris stock exchange, then bought stakes in retailers including CFAO, Conforama, Printemps, La Redoute and Fnac; in 1993 it was renamed Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR)
- 1999: PPR bought a controlling 42% stake in the Gucci Group for $3 billion and acquired Yves Saint Laurent; Boucheron followed in 2000 and Balenciaga in 2001
- 2003: he handed management of his companies to his elder son, François-Henri Pinault
Artémis
Artémis, controlled entirely by the Pinault family, owns the vineyards Château Latour in Bordeaux and Clos de Tart in Burgundy among others, as well as the auction house Christie’s, the football club Stade Rennais, the talent agency Creative Artists Agency and the news magazine Le Point.
Art Collection
- Collection: he bought his first significant painting in the early 1970s and built a large contemporary art collection
- Venice: in 2005 he bought the Palazzo Grassi, renovated by the architect Tadao Ando, and in 2007 won the tender for the Punta della Dogana
- Paris: the Bourse de Commerce, also transformed by Ando, opened as a Pinault Collection museum in May 2021
Why It Matters
Kering owns some of the best-known fashion brands in the world, and the Pinault family’s control through Artémis makes it one of the richest in France.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: The Bourse de Commerce in Paris, converted by the architect Tadao Ando into a Pinault Collection museum (file photo, 2021; François Pinault is not pictured). Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
