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Pandemic stock surges push LVMH titan Bernard Arnault to centibillionaire status; list now contains 5 of the world’s richest men

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Stock surges during the COVID-19 pandemic have pushed the fortunes of five business moguls into $100 billion territory, as per the Bloomberg Billionaire Index (BBI). Newest member to the club is French luxury brand LVMH’s CEO Bernard Arnault.

Arnault’s bounty came as investors rushed for equities after Pfizer announced that its vaccine candidate showed 90 percent effectiveness against COVID-19, Bloomberg reported.

The other four “centibillionaires” are usual suspects Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. These five alone collectively added $68 billion to their fortunes on November 9, as per BBI. The report thus called 2020 “a banner year for the world’s richest” as the BBI’s 500 occupants collectively added $1.2 trillion to their wealth since January – a 21 percent jump.

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This is the first time five individuals have made the milestone and even as latest as 2018, Bezos was the sole centibillionaire. Bezos in fact is a centibillionaire ‘twice-over’ notwithstanding his divorce and subsequent wealth split with MacKenzie Scott.

Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies cautioned that the milestone was not one to celebrate, but is “rather a troublesome reflection of a broken global economic system.”

The biggest gain was Zara-owner Amancio Ortega who added $7.6 billion thanks to the influx from investors. The push was so big it erased half of his losses due to the pandemic.

The biggest loser meanwhile was Zoom chief executive Eric Yuan, who flushed $5.1 billion as company shares nosedived.

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