Richest Man, Happiest Woman

SCENE ONE: Bernard Arnault, aged 72, turns to his wife Helene Mercier over breakfast at their home in Paris. "I've made $76bn since last March," he proudly tells her. "As of today I'm the richest man in the world (to be continued . . . )

SCENE TWO: Christian Liden, aged 28, turns to his girlfriend over a candle-lit dinner in Poulsbo, Washington State, USA, and presents her with an engagement ring. "It's all my own work," he says. She looks puzzled. "I panned the gold myself," he explains. "I dug up a 2.2-carat diamond myself, I found the opals and I designed the ring myself. I hope you don't mind but I got a jeweler to put it all together." (to be continued . . . )

These are, of course, imagined conversations, but both are rooted in real news stories that caught my interest this week. News is all about extremes - the biggest, the fastest, the richest, the poorest - and journalists revel in the contrasts between them.
The first story, as reported on virtually every news channel, is about Bernard Arnault becoming the wealthiest individual on the planet. Shares in the luxury conglomerate LVMH rose by 0.4 per cent on the strength of a surprise Covid boom. That increased the value of his majority holding in the company by $600m, saw his personal fortune rise to $186.3bn (Forbes estimate) and nudged him slightly ahead of Amazon's Jeff Bezos in the global wealth stakes.
Arnault started his professional in his father's construction company, worked as a real estate developer, acquired one luxury goods company, then another, laid off 9,000 workers, sold a lot of assets, bought LVMH in 1989 and grew it into an empire that numbers Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon, Givenchy. Fendi, and Christian Dior among its 75 subsidiaries. And, of course, Tiffany & Co.  Who can forget the on-off-on-again kerfuffle over the biggest ever takeover in the world of luxury goods? The very quick version of a very long and very bitter story is that Arnault pulled out of the deal, sparking a flurry of legal threats, until he got a $425m discount on the original $15.8bn price tag. What he saved on the deal amounted to just over 0.2 per cent of his total net worth, but they do say look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.  Arnault awoke on Monday morning to find his value had increased as he slept, thanks to lively trade in his stock.
It's all a world away from Mr Liden, hero of our second, extremely different, story. Very little has ever been reported about him, except for the fact that he had the good fortune earlier this month to unearth a decent-sized yellow diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park, in Arkansas, USA, (2,000 miles from his home). Day-trippers there pay $10 a day to look for gems - and keep anything they unearth. He's committed to finding everything he needs to make the ultimate declaration of love for the sweetheart he's had since eighth-grade at school.  And he's put his heart and soul into the project. He's spent the last five years panning for gold in his home state, he's hoping to unearth opals in Nevada to complete the ring, and he will design the piece himself, he told local reporters, once he has all the ingredients. And so let us return, for a moment, to our imagined conversations.

SCENE ONE: (continued) "C'est gentil, Bernard, mon chéri," replies Helene, as she butters her croissant. "Maybe we can replace the dishwasher and get those new patio doors I've been on about."

SCENE TWO: (continued) Stunned silence. The soon-to-be Mrs Liden is speechless. Throws arms around Mr Liden. Enthusiastic embrace.

Have a fabulous weekend